Notes from Dec Interviews - by Gibz

South Kern Sol
Notes from Meeting with Will on Dec.21 : By Gibran “Gibz” Moncayo  

Questions:

1. How old were you when you got here?
2. How did you travel or get here?
3. What is a fond memory from you or your parents at that time?
4. Where did you live at?
5. How where the conditions in which you lived?
6. Where did your family and you move from?
7. When you arrived what did you see?
8. What was the feeling you got once you arrived?
9. How was school here?

Wayne was seven when he arrived here, born in Oklahoma. Larry was born here, named by his father a C.I.O. (California Improved Okie). Don was nine when he arrived, born in Oklahoma. 

Don: During Fourth or Fifth grade, I went to Digiorgio Farm School.  New comers would go to camp 5 and after secure employment you would move up to camp 8.  Rockpile school changed name in 1946 to Digiorgio Farm School. Camp 8 was box cars, due to insulation it was hot, they were train carts, two side by side and one in the middle. It had two bedrooms and one bathroom they were in a row, "it was the first time I've seen hot running water and toilets that flushed.‟  Each had ten units.  Our swimming pool was the reservoir that was there. What I remember was the National Geographic in 1938 or 1939 the big Arvin national Poppy spread.  Camp 8 had a sink and running water. Camp 5 is where you established yourself as an employee.  A blanket split the box car.  Camp 8 is where everyone hoped to be and wanted to be.  In 1946 I graduated from Digiorgio Farm School, my dad got fired at that time for union activity, and we moved to Lamont and started high school.  We always had chickens, so that meant eggs and fried chicken, potatoes farmers had on their land.  I was in the diaper crew, which is when you work when you're 12 and work during the summer. I worked in the potato farm and you had to cut that off the plant.  Marcus camp was one the camps for the Mexican workers in the Bracero Program.  The first thing I remember seeing was the white wolf grade, coming down Highway 58, the most spectacular view of the lush green valley and the check board patterns in at the cross.   At 8 years old I didn't have feelings, but as long as my mommy and daddy were there I would say it was good.  Star light room was where the dump was, sand hills. Males worked most of the year; and females work in the summer, go through asparagus, corn, apricots. Females would have 8 hour days, and they would take pride in what they did, the best of them would be floor ladies. Swampers started working at 16. “He shines like a dime in a goats butt.” 

Larry: I always heard of Camp 8 it was famous “main camp.”  I remember bringing 200 Poppies and 300 Lupines home.  Rockpile was where we shot doves; we (my father and us) would go to play there for a couple of hours.  It would cost a gallon of gas and it was great recreational past time.  Moving from Digiorgio to Lamont is like a whole different world. When I see a man with a wife and 3-5 kids it takes me back to 1937 and 1938 that was a beauty.  There are more similarities with Okies and Mexicans than there are differences.  Indoctrination of Mexican students in 1980s and 1990s is horrible oh poor me, we went through the same thing you guys went through.  Discrimination was subtle, because there were so many of us.  Union thugs, the people that would not quit for the excuse of working.  Farm worker's house had a black maid, they had fridges not ice boxes [not like us] and it was full of food which was unbelievable.  There was no differences in in school much, small farmers had 500 acres. It was misnomer, we were never starving, was it meager?  Yes beans and taters was what we ate a lot of.  My mom paid bills and whatever was left was for food.  We had 500 rabbits and daddy was going crazy.  I remember telling my dad, Dad I‟m proud of you.  Why aren't you proud to be called and Okie?  "Well son because there is always four to five adjectives in front of it."  I was eight when I picked cotton.  At 45 my dad became a bartender.  My uncle Buddy loved picking cotton. I wasn't a great cotton picker. I remember a guy wanted to charge me five cents to empty my sack.  I climbed the rickety ladder and emptied out myself, and then I got a coke and a chocolate bar for fifteen cents,  [that‟s when I learned the value of hard work.]  I was one of nine boys, my dad came from a family of 15 and my mother from a family of 12, Don was only child till he was 20, which is very weird and rare.  "Boles"-- it's when you start picking cotton but from the roots up, grabbing everything, and then there‟s cotton picking when you do it correctly. 1955 is when cotton picking was over with.  Even if you were a poor migrant and they appreciated your work they stayed at a bunk at Digiorgio's house, the men where single though.  Women would work 6-9 months and then draw up unemployment after the peach season.  My mom was a positive woman lived in a tent first.  I was born in Kern General Medical Center.  An Okie dinner is at 12 pm, daddy worked for seventy-five cents.  In 1937 my dad traveled 1300 miles to get a job, came in the back of a pickup truck. Steinbeck traveled with Okies.  He traveled here for a better opportunity.  My daddy cried only twice in his lifetime, one explaining how my sister died because he had no money to pay a doctor to help my sister and when my grandfather died.  “If I could buy him for what he is worth and sell him for what he thinks he is worth I would make a lot of money.” 

Wayne: Digiorgio was the biggest fruit importer, they had 25,000 acres. When I first got here, I saw orchard over orchards of grapes. I lived in tin cabins, each was one room, had a kerosene stove for heating, second woodstove, we had two cabins, my grandmother, grandfather, mom, dad, sister, and me would stay in them. Blankets would make a room. Air conditioning was a breeze of wind. 110 degree heat it was hot in there, you can imagine. It had main bathrooms; I had never seen so many flushing toilets in my life. My slip-n-slide was on the shower floor a concrete slab that was 12x18 or 12x20 feet long, it seemed big but as a child everything looks big.”Y‟all remember when we get our cotton bags and pick cotton till night?” I used to pick cotton, irrigate it, and chop it. I‟ve been here since 1942, I remember Earl Shelton picked 500 lbs of cotton a day. Green bulbs would open up and soft cotton material would sit up on top of it. I would swamp the peaches on to the trailer bed and I would go to the shack and stack them there. I remember we came down the mountain, it was a Saturday and it was getting dark, we arrived at Weedpatch Camp, the music hall always had something going on, met my cousins that took me to the bathrooms, which was like Disneyland to me. In 1942 my daddy sold all his farming equipment and got a brand new Chevy pickup truck that we used to get over here, we had to use a lot of hot patches for the tires. 

All three agreed that picking cotton at age 12 was something good, gave something for youth/kids to do during summer.

Will in December

Will's notes from a week (-ish) long visit to Arvin & South Kern County

December vineyard

Monday (12/19)
Played pool with the men of the Rasmussen Senior Center. They berated me often for being from New York (i.e., watch out people, he's just hustling us, he's from NY!). Outside the center afterward, I spoke with Larry Rasmussen who shared stories about growing up poor in Arvin (specifically about being too embarrassed to bring his teacher to his house).  

Tuesday (12/20)  
Attended a City Council meeting where drastic budget cuts were considered and, later, adopted. Also at the meeting, the members of the We the People Team asked the City Council to fund their team jackets. Although the City Council denied funding the jackets, the attendees in the meeting, spurred on the Mayor, volunteered to donate money, and the money was raised. The impromptu community philanthropy reminded me, and many others at the meeting, of the final scene of It’s a Wonderful Life.

Wednesday (12/21)
Co-facilitated an interview with three men whose families came west during the Dust Bowl (Larry Hallam, Wayne Schlusser, and Don Burkett). The interview was co-led by young people from South Kern Sol (Andy Garcia, Gibz Moncayo) and Coordinator Luz Peña. Gibbs' excellent notes from that meeting are attached to this report. In the middle of the meeting, Supervisor Karen Goh happened to stop by, and was so excited by the work that we were doing that she left and came back with Rafael Moreno, the Branch Supervisor of the Lamont Branch Library. After the interview, Mr. Moreno showed us the extensive collection of Dust Bowl history housed in the library, including binders of Government Migrant Camp reports which he opened to a page that said, “today John Steinbeck bought ice cream for some of the camp residents.”

Interviewed Mauro Lopez with the support of translator Javier Arreola. Mauro talked about his journey north and his first days in Arvin.

Thursday (12/29) 

6:45 a.m. Breakfast with Gabriel and the men of the Dust Bowl at the Westchester Bowling Alley in Bakersfield. Heard stories about: the German prisoners of the POW camp, who worked in the fields alongside one of the men‟s mothers; experiences of discrimination against Okies at the Fox Theater in Bakersfield; an arrival in Weedpatch at Christmas Eve; and a man whose father worked in the fields so early that he would have to light the rows by his headlights. W.C. Stampes insisted that I see the Huell Howswer video about Weedpatch, and berated me that I hadn't done so yet. Also said I should read Elizabeth Strickland's book about the Dust Bowl.

8:00 a.m. A brief game of pool at the Rasmussen Senior Center in Oildale. Don Burkett said that he'd be happy to set up a meeting with his aunt, so we could learn more about the strike at the Digiorgio Farm (although his dad took part, he was too young to remember it). I asked W.C. Stampes what was inaccurate to him about the portrayal of Okies in Grapes of Wrath, and he didn't name specifics, except for that Steinbeck called the camp “Weedpatch” instead of “The Government Camp,” which is a personal pet peeve.  

9:45 a.m.: Had breakfast with Gabriel and Karina Gutierrez. Karina is an Arvin High School and UCSD graduate, and performer with Kaiser Permanente‟s touring theater program. It was a fascinating conversation about race, politics, and theater. Karina's goal is to get a PhD studying Chicano theater. She'll be in Arvin next summer and is excited to participate in any way she can.  

11:00 a.m. Met with Salvador Partida, local activist. He spoke to Gabriel and me about his work in the community, specifically on the issue of clean air. The Committee for Better Arvin, of which he is the Chairman, is doing community-led air monitoring through “the bucket brigade” and the BHC youth group is also participating. He also spoke about the small-town mentality of Arvin, which he said has prevented a hotel, a Wall-Mart, and other services from being brought into the community.  

1:00 p.m. Attended last part of BHC training led by Victor Mehia, of Youth Leadership Institute. Mr. Mehia was training the young people on community organizing and advocacy techniques, in support of their agenda to create a community park.  

3:30 p.m: Met with Alberto Perea Calderon, who came to the U.S. during the Bracero program, along with South Kern members Clara Bruno and Andy Garcia, and South Kern Sol Coordinator Luz Peña. The meeting was set up by Luz, and took place in the Bakersfield home of Mr. Calderon. It was a moving meeting, in particular the description of the centers in Mexico where Braceros were processed or, as Mr. Perea described them, “concentration camps.” He described men waiting in long lines, scratching their palms raw with dried corn cobs (rough hands were considered signs of experience in the fields, and thus more advantageous for acceptance into the program), men having to strip naked and sprayed with “DDT” to get rid of pests (I question that it was DDT, but this should be researched), and in general being treated as animals. His father was also a participant in the Bracero program. 

Evening: Met at Bear Mountain Pizza with Gabriel Garcia and two of his classmates at CSUB, Mónica Martinez and Sue Calderon. Mónica has been very involved in theater, and is the person who got Gabriel involved. Sue is a very close friend. It was a very fun night, filled with many stories of what it's like to grow up in Arvin. Mónica spoke about her love for Arvin, about the many sacrifices her parents made, and how proud of them she is for that – she spoke in particular about growing up without any money, but never feeling poor. There were also many funny stories about weddings (how big weddings are in Arvin, and how both Mónica and Sue dream of a small wedding, even though their parents would never allow it) and the unique bond between mothers and daughters in such a small, Mexican-American town.  

Friday (12/30)  
9:00 a.m. Interview with Ana Maria Arreola (mother of translator Javier Arreola), Jim McKee, and Wayne Beavers, two men in their seventies who were migrants from the Dust Bowl era. Ms. Arreola spoke about her family driving west from Texas to work in the fields, in a crowded car that broke down in Arizona, where her mom made tortillas by hand over a home-made grill. Much of the story reminded me of Dust Bowl migration stories. She also spoke about her life in the midst of the UFW struggles. Particularly moving was her memory of serving as a translator during the main community meetings of the UFW during the summer of 1973, which took place in the Lamont Park opposite the Boys and Girls Club. Mr. McKee spoke about his life in Oklahoma, and his struggle to make a living. Particularly moving was a story about a man coming to his father's farm and offering to sell him a nice truck for $700, but that, even if his father sold his land, his house, his horses, and everything he owned, he couldn‟t come up with $700. Mr. McKee said that he always dreamed of buying a nice truck and bringing it home to his father.  

12:30 p.m. Interview with Gabriel's mom and aunt. They spoke about the village where they lived in Mexico, and their mother, and specifically talked about the day that Gabriel's aunt had to tell her mom that she was leaving for the US. The conversation was rushed , and had to take place at their mom's store in the main plaza of the town. They also shared details about the days of working in the fields and balancing child rearing, and going door to door at around 4:30 a.m. with “baby burritos” (babies wrapped in blankets) asking for neighbors to watch their children so that they could go to work. 

5:00 p.m. Visited the Boys and Girls Club, to attend a planned pot luck for members of the South Kern Sol group. It was unattended, except for Andy Garcia and (briefly) Clara Bruno. I stayed anyway and saw selections of Andy's video of the interview with Mr. Calderon. I also was able to spend time with Amerika Niño, who grew up in Lamont, then went to NYU, and now is back to support her home town. 

7:30 p.m.: Attended a drama class reunion thrown by Sheila McClure, the former drama teacher at Arvin High School. She's a legendary teacher and the students of those years are still remembered in the high school. In attendance were a number of folks who might be interested in participating the project: Araceli, who has significant experience as a Stage Manager in community theater, and would be interested in helping out in stage management; Paola, a community organizer and activist who lists as her occupation, “activist, actor, student, runner;” Jorge Guillen, a muralist and spoken word artist who is on the board of the Arts Council of Kern; Gerardo (Jerry) Kern, who does set design and set construction for local theater; and several others. Paola spoke about her life as an undocumented student, and what it has meant for her as a person and activist, and also why her father did not picket with the UFW; and others spoke about their experiences with race, class, and being at Arvin High. It was a very inspiring night. Additional notes: Ruben Carillo, not present, is apparently an enormously gifted musician and composer, who has orchestrated whole musicals; and Sheila‟s husband, Randy Lollar, is an experienced actor with an MFA in acting.

Saturday (12/30) 
Visited mural by Jorge Guillen in Lamont: it's a strong piece that embraces 4 walls surrounding a single intersection, including an image of Zapatistas in front of a pastel landscape.  

Paula in December

Arts Council of Kern has arranged for a community-engaged visual arts project in Garden in the Sun, one of Arvin’s main parks.  The project is part of the California Endowment’s Building Healthy Communities initiative in South Kern County.  The two artists involved are Hataya Tubtim and Michelle Glass, both graduates of Otis School of Design worked on the 2009 community project in Laton (Fresno County).  I’ve been talking with Hataya about our shared goals and overlapping practices in community engagement.  They are just getting started with their outreach and we are a little bit ahead of them.  They invited us to a meeting on Friday December 16 with friends of theirs—the parents of an Otis colleague—Maria and Sam Mercado.   Their meeting at the Mercados’ home in south Bakersfield was more of a party than a meeting.

Maria and Sam immediately became 2 of my favorite people by telling me that Waking Up In Lost Hills was one of the best theater going experiences of their lives—on a short list with Zoot Suit, The Pointer Sisters' production of Ain’t Misbehavin’, and Angela Basset in Fences.

We ate delicious pozole with tostadas and salsa verde.  We drank cerveza and/or margaritas made with juice from backyard lemons.  For desert we had Cuban coffee, guava pie from Café Tropical (our contribution) and fresh Mexican fruit candy.

Maria Morales Mercado and her husband Sam, & José Morales- head of Migrant Education for Kern County & Maria’s little brother all grew up in Arvin in the 60s & 70s, José’s wife Laura who grew up in Bakersfield.  Blanca Cavazos, chief instructional officer for Kern County Superintendent of Schools, also grew up in Arvin and also was Principal of Arvin High School for 13 years.

Jose & Laura Morales, Sam & maria Mercado

Hataya and Michelle had a meeting in Arvin late that afternoon and it went long so they were rather late arriving.  So Will and I had plenty of time and opportunity to talk with all these guests about their experiences in Arvin and ongoing opinions and insights.  Sam told a detailed story of the one time he went to a farm worker protest.  Maria talked about her family’s move to the US, following her father’s move north in the Bracero Program.

Maria is littlest on left, José in Mama's arms, Keene 1962

José answered some questions from Hataya about migrant ed and about Grimmway Academy the new charter school in Arvin.  He confirmed the same thoughts that it’s existence in his opinion is a vanity project of the Grimmway Farms family, that it’s a rejection of the school district, that there’s an elitism about it though he didn’t really explain that very well.  Maria commented that the school is on the property where the old cable company used to be and the cable company jacked up prices for Spanish-language channels.

Will and I ended up staying an hour or 90 minutes more than the other guests talking about their recent visit to LACMA and the Mexican art they’d seen there, their daughter Marisa’s recent wedding and the ethnic history and transformation of indigenous people and Spaniards in Mexico.

On Saturday, December 17, we led a workshop with a group of youth journalists that are organized through the Dolores Huerta Foundation.  All the same participants we’d met before were present plus a few who were absent last time.  We had 11 participants including Gabriel Garcia and Luz Peña, the supervisor for South Kern Sol.

Pablo, Will, Clara, Gibz, Andy, Lizette, Miroslava, Luz, Gabriel

We had the participants make lists for themselves of the communities they belong to as well as of communities they were interested in and individuals in their own communities that they are curious about.

We did a wagon wheel exercise using the discussion topics: Share an experience when someone made an assumption about you based on your culture or community.  Share an experience when you made an assumption about someone based on their culture or community.  Share a story about how you met your first friend.  Share the background and story about the oldest object in your home that you can hold in your hand.  The conversations tended to be very short and the share back was not very fruitful.  In retrospect, I’d have had Will and Luz sit out so that Will could listen in on the story sharing as it was happening.

Will led an exercise designed around the idea of interviews and personal story collection to be translated into a performed presentation.  Working in partners, one person would tell a personal story of arrival.  The second person listens then asks questions about content and details which the storyteller answers.  The storyteller tells the story again including the new information from questions.  After listening to the second telling, the partner then performs back that story to the teller, in the first person as if it is his/her own story.

The exercise is then repeated with the changed roles for the partners.

This seemed a very successful exercise.  One of the youth responded to the call for a volunteer to perform their partner’s story.  There was discussion about what it was like to speak someone else’s story to them as if it was your own, what it was like to hear that for the story owner, etc.

We then inquired about their interest in doing interviews, accompanied by Will and Luz, that would help Will gain more content (and relationships) for script inspiration.  A plan was made for two outings to talk with “recent arrivals” in town on Monday night.  And, on Wednesday, to have the youth interview the Dustbowl gang of friends that Will has been talking to.  (This latter idea evolved after the Monday night event.)

After the workshop we stopped by Arvin High School to see what was going on with the We The People team.  They usually work all day on Saturday in the library there.  But they are headed into finals and Christmas break so they ended their study session early.  When we arrived though we sat down with a  small group working with Dr. Jim Young and they talked with us for awhile about the work they were doing and had done so far.

Dr. Young is in his 80s I think.  He and his family were Dustbowl immigrants.  He is an AHS alum and former teacher.  He started the We The People program at AHS and even though he is retired and he still is very dedicated to helping train the team.  Dr. Young is an amazing person in so many ways.  His dedication to Arvin’s youth and understanding of the challenges they face is remarkable.  Justice is important to him to say the least. 

He explained about the differences between the AHS team and the other consistently high scoring competing teams.  The other winning schools have API scores about 9 (out of 10).  AHS’s API score is 2.  The other teams tend to have multiple national merit scholars on their teams.  AHS has had one national merit scholar in many years.  Many of the AHS team are competing in a language that is not their first language, so while they are fluent English speakers they do not have the advantage of having been speaking it and listening to it their entire lives, therefore the sentence syntax and vocabulary and in some cases diction often require extra practice and preparation.

After the four kids in the work group left we were joined by four other students who were happy to stay and talk with us about their experiences with We the People and beyond.  The team won a recent competition and are working toward the state competition which will take place in Bakersfield on February 11.  These guys were amazing.  At AHS you have to be a senior to be in We the People, so it’s a brand new team each year.  Some people work toward joining the team throughout grades 9, 10 & 11.  Others learn about it late in the game but still try out/audition.  Grades in government and history class are factors in qualifying for the team and the kids work hard to qualify.  There can be no more than 30 members of the team.  Once on the team the students work after school every day and all day Saturday.  They all seemed to really want to be there and to want to do the hard, focused work it requires.

All four boys have colleges that they’ve applied for though they know they might not be able to afford to attend.  After an inquiry from Dr. Young each of them shared about their economic status.  3 of the boys said they do not feel poor.  They have what they need though there is little to no extra and they have the support of their families.  The fourth boy said he feels poor. His mom says they are poor and they do not have money for rent and food.

It was a remarkable conversation with these 5 people.  Dr. Young would tell stories, sometimes monologue for quite awhile and the boys stayed present and interested the whole time.  They seemed to enjoy the conversation and being asked questions and thinking about their own and each others’ answers.


Will and I attended a Christmas Play/Pageant at the Catholic Church in Lamont that evening.  One of our journalist friends, Veronica, had really encouraged us to attend.  “I think you’d really like it,” she told Will.  Partly because there was a ‘Mexican” version of The Night Before Christmas.

The performances were by the catechism students (extra curricular Catholic class rather than attending a Catholic school) of all ages.  It was a classic hot mess with terrible sightlines, broken overhead lights and sound system that harmed more than helped.  Gabriel Garcia met us there.  We were a little late and, mostly on my urging, we left early.

Will returns to spend Sunday night thru Wednesday night in Arvin and will be back in Arvin the week after Christmas for more interviews and conversations.

- Paula Donnelly, 12/20/11

photos: in Lamont

From intersection of Weedpatch Hwy and DiGiorgio Rd, looking South East.

One section of community mural on Segrue Rd in Lamont.  Young people have planned the content and are painting it, organized through the Delores Huerta Foundation.

Jorge, a local muralist is working on a commission around the block from this.  He told us that someone started this painting on a Lamont residential wall.  When questioning police learned the art work was unpermitted, the artist abandoned the Virgin without finishing her face and hands.  Within days though, people brought her flowers and offerings and prayers.

Will in November

Moments from November- a week in Arvin, Lamont & Weedpatch

Monday-  Playing pool with men at the Rasmussen Senior Center in Oildale in the morning. Men in their seventies and one in their eighties. Okies. A sign on the door that says, “No one under age 65 is allowed to play pool.” Don Burkett telling me about his father who led a strike at Digiorgio Farm (“He was fired right away. A few people were arrested for vandalism for cutting down trees. And there were many people who wanted jobs who took their place”).
Dinner at the home of Manuel and Maria Garcia, parents of Gabriel Garcia. Her warmth and her elegance remind me of my grandmother, and I feel very welcomed by both of them. They were raised in Mexico and left school after sixth grade to work in the fields there, and have lived in the U.S. for decades. I ate two burritos at the gas station burrito place before coming (again saw the friendly neighborhood drug dealer; he pulled weed out of his pocket in front of the burrito counter to demonstrate its quality) and I am totally stuffed, but I can’t say no; I even have seconds. After dinner, a conversation with Manuel, Maria, and Mauro Lopez, Gabriel’s brother-in-law who joins us after dinner – bringing the last grapes of the season, which are particularly sweet.
Tuesday-  Gabriel tells me a story about a trip to Mexico when he was young, and how his dad got lost (his mom, sitting beside us, insists he wasn’t), and how he and his brother sat tight in the back seat of the truck playing hand-held video games, and how long you can go in Mexico without a gas station, and how afraid they were that they would run out of gas. He says that the truck was filled with household supplies and gifts for people in Mexico, and I am struck with the parallels to the story of Bob England, Dust Bowl street kid who now goes to Mexico every year with a truck filled with supplies for local orphans in the village where he lives part-time.
At the Board of Supervisors meeting for Community Recycling which ended (after I left – it lasted from 2 pm – 10 pm) with the Supervisors closing the plant and fining them $2.3 million. It took a half an hour for the person from the County staff to list all their past violations. After two brothers died in the plant, and Cal-OSHA ordered plant operators to stay away from the tunnel where they died, Community Recycling let people go inside it 5 times, presumably to clean up evidence. So much happened at the hearing, from a white man in a red cowboy s man arguing that the plant shouldn’t be closed for ‘political posturing’ while simultaneously honoring the undocumented immigrants who work there; to the guy who sells Community Recycling’s uniforms talking about the growth of the company (“I am the guy who sells their uniforms so I know they are expanding”); to Supervisor Goh greeting the family of the deceased men like a politician at a funeral; to an elegantly dressed Chicana woman threatening to recall the Supervisors if they kept the plant open; to the city of Lamont saying that if the plant is closed, waste water from the city would have to poured into the street ‘in 45 days’; to people lamenting the potential loss of over 130 jobs if the plant were to close; to many people talking about the many false promises made by the company over many years. At the break, I notice that the men’s bathroom line is much longer than the women’s, and it strikes me when I come back inside that the hearing room is made up almost entirely men, almost all Mexican or Mexican American; working faces asking for justice.

I watch Gabriel and Kat (she participated in CSU's 2011 Summer Arts Cornerstone workshop, too) perform in a student-directed production of the ‘Laramie Project’ at CSUB in the evening. The play’s tenderness and the tenderness with which the company depicts the community of Laramie moves me. I hope that I can muster up some of that grace.
Wednesday-  Gabriel tells me that the family of a friend from CSUB has been deported. He is a senior and a drama major. He was in the process of applying to Yale Drama – but he left school in his senior year, and no one knew why. Gabriel just found out. His parents and his sister were deported, and he has had to leave school to work. Gabriel tells me that he acted in a play in the friend’s back yard last summer, and what a normal, warm house it is; and the family had been here for decades.
I talk with a local resident who tells me that his wife has just had a miscarriage. He asks me, “I think it’s from the pollution here. What do you think?”
I meet with Javier Arreola, who has agreed to be our translator. He tells me about his work with the UFW, which he has both enormous respect for and also enormous bitterness for. According to him, “the movement is a corporation” and it became a kind of idol-worship that lost its way, and descended into infighting and intermarrying after (and before) Cesar Chavez’s death. He also talks about the police in Arvin, which used to beat up Hispanic men just because of the color of their skin (“Marx would call the police part of the repressive apparatus”), and a rumor he heard twice about helicopters dropping off drugs in the fields that were then distributed to street gangs. During the height of the conversation (in the nearly empty Starbucks in Bakersfield), when he is sharing the most difficult things about the UFW, he ask that we sit outside because of who might be listening.  Javier is carrying a print out: a marked up, English/Spanish grammar book which he is writing in his spare time.
Thursday-  I have breakfast at 6:45am at the Westchester Bowling Alley in Bakersfield with 10-12 men from Okie stock who have been friends for many decades. After Don Burkett gives me a warm and slightly tongue-in- cheek introduction, I tell them about our play, and about how I’d like to tell the story about the waves of migration, including Okies and contemporary Mexican and Mexican-American migrants. Almost before I’ve finished the sentence, Reford Hutson says “The main difference is that they’re illegal.” Barney

Meyer tells me the story of his mixed race parents (Mexican and Okie), and how they met and when Spanish was spoken at the home (“W.C. did you know any of this before?” “No!” “Me neither” “Why didn’t we ask?” “Cause we didn’t care!”). Later, Barney asks how Mexican people with many children can afford so many Quincineras, and recommends that they stop having Quincinieras (“They should be American!”) Outside, he tells me the story of his grandson who used to beat up white kids and who has embraced his Chicano heritage by giving his kids Mexican names (clearly confusing to Barney). W.C. Stampes tells me about talking to a Mexican-American Marine veteran, saying, “When you guys take over, my name is pronounced Stampiez (ie, with a Latino pronunciation). The word ‘wetback’ floats from the end of the table.  Also, stories of Dr. Desmet, the legendary doctor at Digiorgio farms who ‘wasn’t big on anesthesia”. Conversation about overalls (“We took them off as soon as we got here, because they identified us as Okie”); about the lack of rubber during the war, and the attempt (too late) to grow it in Arvin; and a warm feeling of male camaraderie, familiar, aggressive in a loving way.
After breakfast, playing pool at the Rasmussen Senior Center and more talk with W.C. about his political views. When I tell him that I saw at Dust Bowl Days that Fred Ross (a leading mentor for Cesar Chavez) worked at Weedpatch, he says, “If we knew that, we’d have thrown him under the bus.” His view about the UFW is that people were whining. “I picked cotton under when I was 12. Taller than my head. No one ever died of heat exhaustion back then. They died of heat exhaustion because they were drinking too much the night before.” He also expresses his anger for the UFW picketing in front of Weedpatch and barring people who wanted to work from working; he remembers driving by the picket lines and seeing a picketer take up a rock to throw at his car, and that he’s “trying to be saved” otherwise he couldn’t have controlled his anger. Larry Hallum adds, “We had a good deal. We wanted to work. And the farmers had jobs. So it worked out for both of us.” W.C. is just getting warmed up, and he talks about education, home schooling (“I gotta unload.”) It goes on and on. I finally interject when he starts talking about Armageddon and gay people, (“I have many friends who are gay and they are strong, loving couples,” I respond. W.C.: “We have a nephew who is gay and we go to church and pray for him.”) Yet, even amidst the comments which I clearly don’t like (later he refers to Woody Guthrie and those other communists and I say “My people!”), but there is a respect in our exchange, even in the disagreement; maybe because I respect so deeply what he and his folks did to make a life for themselves, and he feels that; or maybe just because I am listening, and there is respect inherent in that.
After playing pool, I visit Evergreen Senior Center and meet Millie Gibson, at 101 possibly the oldest living Dust Bowl Migrant. I sit and listen to her very lucid stories about coming west (she came in the forties because of flooding on her land so, technically, not a Dust Bowl migrant), sitting beside her son Bob. An amazing story about the journey west, settling at Weedpatch, continually punctuated by expressions of gratitude for God and for California, and how happy her life was (And a disagreement between her and Bob about where she sat in the truck. He says she sat in the cab with three other adults, she insists she sat in the back with 13 kids, from two families). On the way out, I talk to Bob, who tells me that his half-Cherokee father was fluent in the Cherokee language and once brought him to visit the former home of the famed Oklahoma outlaw Belle Star. When I say to him how amazing it is that his mother is so happy and so grateful for her life, he says, “Well, we never had any hard times.”

After Evergreen, I drive up the road to Tehachapi to La Paz, the current home of the UFW. There is an amazing photo exhibit there of the movement, as well as the untouched office of Cesar Chavez, almost like a shrine. It’s incredible to see in the photos the faces of working people, clearly farm workers, and the raw spirit of fighting against enormous power; pride; Cesar Chavez clearly very poor himself; Luis Valdez and early scenes of el Teatro; joy, celebration, power.
On the way back, from La Paz, I drive down the winding road that Dust Bowl migrants drove down just before the valley opened up to the lushness of the fields below. I remember vividly Nellie Oldham’s story of coming down that hill as a little girl, arriving in the spring, and seeing the blossoms exploding with color - in stark contrast to the brown, dry landscape that she had left behind. I stop by the home of Mauro Lopez and we watch (first in Spanish and then in English) the incredibly inspiring film “Fighting for our Lives” about mid-1973, when the battles of the UFW was at its most violent (two farm workers died that year). Afterward, we talk about if that movement could be possible now, a discussion we’ve had before (when I asked him that when we were working in the fields, he said, “No, and it’s our own fault. Because people will just take our place”). Today, he says, “I used to be a member, but I can’t afford the $30.” And when I tell him about the nice buildings at the UFW headquarters, he says, “and I’m afraid that’s where my $30 would go.” Mauro also tells me about how, back in the day, police would be waiting at 5:30 a.m. at the 7/11 and at local gas stations to harass Mexican men. I need to revisit this conversation with a translator, because an enormous amount of nuance was lost. Mauro also tells me how hard it is now to make a living by working in the fields, how one can barely stay ahead of the bills. I wonder: how were Gabriel’s parents able to buy 2 (3?) homes doing the same? What has changed?
At Karaoke night at Bear Mountain Pizza where I sang “Un Dia a La Vez” (badly), at owner Manuel Pantoja’s request (Luckily, someone agreed to sing it with me). After, the singer and his friends welcom me warmly to their table, especially Javi, who is a Teacher’s Aide at the Sunset School. We drink Clamato mixed with beer and salt. I tell them about the play, and they say they’d love to help (one woman at the table said, ‘we’ll welcome you this way’ and made a gesture I couldn’t quite see, at which point Javi said ‘don’t be perverted!”) They ae all in their mid-twenties. Maybe a microcosm of young Arvin/Weedpatch/Lamont? One person who used to work in the oil fields but lost that job and is now working the grape lines alongside his mother; a second, who is working as a dump truck driver at Community Recycling, set to close in 90 days, (“they have so much money, and so many properties, a $2.3 million fine won’t hurt, and they’ll just move their business to another county. The people who will really suffer are those who are losing our jobs.”); Javi, who works as a teacher’s aide and used to work at a bank before being laid off; a woman beside her (“my life ain’t about nuthin”). I ask them if we got together all the people their age in the area and asked how many people do drugs, what would the answer (“The majority. Most of the people at this table do coke” the woman says). When they sign the info sheet, all of them put “drunk” in the column marked “additional interests”
Friday
Interviewed Nelda Oldham, 84, at her trailer in a quiet senior trailer park in Bakersfield. She lived at Weedpatch when John Steinbeck was there, although they never met. Later, she became the head of the Housing Authority, and speaks with a refined grammar that belies education and an inquisitive mind

(she tells me that she only recently read The Grapes of Wrath, although she had read Cannery Row, of Mice and Men, and others. She said, despite how angry everyone was about the book, and despite the fact that he invented some parts just for dramatic effect, he ‘ mostly got it right’). She tells me about leaving Oklahoma, about their drive, about the games she played with other kids in Weedpatch, and the singing group that she and other two girl friends formed at the camp. Perhaps because she worked at the Housing Authority, she has a great deal of sympathy for current migrants, and she does see the connections between her life and theirs. She does not have a lot of respect for Cesar Chavez (“From what I understand, he was too lazy to work, so he hung around the pool halls and listened to folks and that’s where he got his ideas.”) This may be partly to do with her relationships with farmers, who she respected and she felt always respected the Okies – maybe because they shared an immigrant background , as she says– and whom she stayed in touch with. I’d like to learn about the results of the strikes in the farms (A story I have heard is that many farms shut down in the wake of UFW strikes, but my instinct is that was because of larger economic forces outside the farms). At the end of the interview, she describes the lushness of the fields in the hills coming into Arvin, which were filled with wild flowers. She shows me a picture of her brother and sister one year after coming to Arvin, hands filled with flowers almost as big as them.
Later, I watch a youth soccer league, founded by man named Ben, who immigrated to Arvin from Belize. I am watching the game because Mauro, Gabriel Garcia’s brother-in-law, is one of the coaches. During the game, I talk to Mauro’s daughter her about her dad, who I know was a single dad for part of her and her sisters’ childhood (Mauro told me this the day that I worked beside him in the fields; he worked in the fields and raised them alone. It’s one of the reasons he is so sympathetic to single mother farm workers). His daughter tells me how proud of her dad she is for raising them alone. After the game, I speak to the father of a player who has lived here for decades, become a citizen, and at one point tried moving to Texas but moved back (“The pay was better, but here in Arvin are people I’ve known my whole life. Don Chavo over there, if I ever needed money, he’d give it to me.”) Speaking about how white people view field work, he says with anger and a tinge of sadness: “They don’t like us. But nobody else will do this work. It’s like the movie, ‘A Day without Mexicans’. They can’t live without us. But they don’t like us.”
After the game, I talk to Lucy, Gabriel’s sister, who works in a truck stop at the intersection of route 99 and highway 5. We are talking about their parents, and how amazed I am by their kindness and generosity, and she explains that during part of their childhood they had 13 people living in the house – and that her mom would come home, cook dinner for everyone, cook lunch for the next day for people working in the fields. According to Lucy, “We live our lives with a clock in our hands.”
Saturday
Paula, I, and Gabriel meet with youth members of South Kern Sol, a youth media team that writes health-related articles for New America Media. When I arrive, Paula is in a circle of “Amazons,” young women both in South Kern Sol and in a group sponsored by the Dolores Huerta Foundation. They are

leaving to go to LA for an exhibit. We sit with the young people who remain in Arvin, along with Luz Pena, their mentor and journalism teacher. The young people talk about the details of their life, often interspersing the mundane details of young adult life (going to school, the Super Wienie truck) with the challenges of Arvin (the smell of pesticide in the morning, gangs). I am moved in particular by the ways in which the descriptions of their morning routines are told against the backdrop of the fields (outside their windows, outside the school bus), and by a particular comment by Pablo, who earlier has said that “although he wears red, gangs don’t bother him because he’s an Emo kid”. Pablo describes the nicer houses with families with more money that stand just on the other side of his: “And I see that house. And I wish I could live in it. But I can’t.”
Afterward, we walk down the block where a group from the Dolores Huerta Foundation is painting an outdoor mural. We speak with Jesus, a leader of the youth group who many of the young people in South Kern Sol look up to. He is a student at Bakersfield College, studying philosophy. He tells me his dream is to be a Coordinator at Dolores Huerta, or maybe a teacher, and we talk about Descartes in front of images of Olmec and Aztez history.
Paula, I, and Gabriel have lunch at the diner in Lamont, then go to visit Gabriel’s family where we have lunch again. At their house is Gabriel’s aunt, filled with energy and an infectious sense of humor. She tells me that “if we need two viejitas” in the play, they are ready. While we are there, Gabriel’s brother David is cleaning the fish tank. He dreams of being a botanist (he is trying to collect every kind of Aloe to cross-pollinate them). We tell him on our way out that we’ll try to introduce him to the CRPE activist who is starting an organic garden in Arvin, possibly linked to South Central Farms.
They say that I am welcome to stay there any time. Their generosity carries us out the door, even though I eat too much and actually get sick on the way home – not sure if it’s the excessive food, the water (which no one drinks), air (the worst in the nation), or the contradictory emotions the stories of the week have left me with. But it is the warmth and hospitality of Gabriel’s family that carry me up the Grapevine.

Will in Arvin in October pt 2

CSTONE NOTES

Will MacAdams

10/23/11

Housing Ideas

I saw Supervisor Goh at the football game, and she suggested that we think about Grimmway Academy as a Plan B for housing.  It’s a brand-new, million dollar charter school a few blocks from the high school.   I met the Principal, Jose Salas, at the Crab Dinner, and he just came from spending 8 years running a charter school in Pacoima.  I told him about Cornerstone’s work in Pacoima and gave him the flyer.  I did not mention the need for housing.  More info at:

I also spoke to Assemblywoman Shannon Grove, through an introduction of Supervisor Goh.  She is close with Barbara Grimm-Marshall, the founder and funder of the school. 

As a side note, I should add that Grimmway Farms (which is where the money for the school comes from) is a huge, international  farm and the area’s largest employer – and many of the stories I am hearing are about the struggles of workers (in both the Dust Bowl and now) and also how large farms like Grimmway have made small farmers disappear.  If we go that route, I would need your guidance about how I can make sure that I keep staying true to the voices I am hearing, even if they are in conflict with the interests of a large farm such as Grimmway.

A bit less realistic, but since it came up. The Property Manager at Weedpatch, mentioned that unlike in the past, the housing there is not full even during the height of the season.  I did see the inside of the units, and they’re actually quite nice.   I don’t know how  many units are vacant, and what size (I believe that they have 2 and 3 bedroom units) but just to know.

Translator

My Spanish is proficient (at best), but not enough to catch the subtleties of an interview.  Gabriel and Danny are both wonderful (Gabriel conducted an amazing interview at Weedpatch, and Danny has a natural sense of openness that encourages stories) but both of their time is limited.  I am going to reach out to Luz Peña, who works with the Boys and Girls Club to conduct oral histories, and who has video equipment to do so, to see if they would like to be a partner on the interview process – could be a great way to build local capacity and make the interviews part of a local archive – but that is just a possibility.  Amerika Niño at the Boys and Girls Club of Kern County – the adult coordinator of the program - met Ashley and was so excited that we followed up by attending the meeting, and really likes what we’re up to).  There is also a great local translator I met (he did simultaneously translation for the BuildingHealthy Communities South Kern public meeting) but that is his profession.  I would love to brainstorm about this as it is the biggest challenge of the work so far.

Economic Impact

I have been  thinking a lot about the levels of unemployment in the area, and the level of poverty generally, and had some questions about our economic  impact.  I think some of this may be crossing a line in terms of my role, but it’s something I feel very passionate about so wanted to do so.  It’s also in the context of my awareness that our deepest impact will not be economic, but in the legacy of community we help foster.

·       Is it possible for us to provide a stipend to the community actors in the show?  Even a modest amount would go a long way in terms of supporting basic needs of community folks, which are enormous.   It would create different challenges, of course (i.e., people auditioning just for the money) but I think it’s something to discuss.

·       Can we keep track of the money we spend in the area between now and the show? I am keeping my receipts, and I wonder if we can ask everyone involved with the show (voluntarily, and anonymously) to share how much they spent on food, gas, etc.  I would even include that in the survey for audience members – again, anonymously.   I think the dollar amount we will directly put into the local economy over the next 9 months will be significant – and being able to define that specifically would help leverage the support of future communities.

Gangs

I heard a number of contradictory thing about Arvin gangs.  There is an understated quality of them that I found surprising and I think worth talking about.

Will in Arvin in October

SATURDAY

On Saturday, I visited the 2011 Dust Bowl Festival at Sunset School, which sits beside the Arvin Migrant Center, along with Paula &  Mark V.  It was a large festival with a cafeteria filled with exhibits of photographs and articles; food booths; exhibits of cotton and potato sacks; an old car dressed as if in the Dust Bowl; live music; and a play at the end of the day.  Highlights included:

·       A conversation with Bob England, born in 1944 to an Oki family and a self-described ‘tramp of Arvin’ as his father was an alcoholic and in jail and in road houses, and his mother left them when he was around 10.  He later joined the military, and then worked in envirohazard monitoring and now splits his time between Bakersfield, Lake Isabella, and Mexico.  He is uniquely able to describe different words: of poor kids and wealthy, and of Mexico and the U.S. (he described being in Mexico and meeting a man named Juan Mejia who, in his childhood, had worked in the potato shed while he worked in the fields.  He also described that his mother would park their car on the dirt beside the fields and draw a circle around the car with a stick, and that he and his younger sisters had to stay in the car or inside the circle until age 7, when they ‘got to pick’; he was so excited to get out of the car, partly because he had to change diapers and feed them).  His words are incredibly honest and detailed, and filled with humor, pain, sadness, strength, and provocation but all in a single tone, as Paula noted.  All in all, there is a generosity about him that is very moving.  I visited him on Sunday at his home (see below)

·       Conversations with Larry B. and Shirley J. Underwood, a very lively couple who talked about briefly working in the fields.  Mark V. talked to them in more detail, but they were very excited and open and seem like potential actors for the play. 

·       A brief conversation with Nelda Oldham, 84 years old, who was living at the migrant camps when John Steinbeck came to do research for Grapes of Wrath.  She doesn’t remember meeting him, but said she’d be open to talking further.  Her son writes for Variety (I believe) in LA.

·       A conversation with WC Stampes, who went to the school at the camps when they had an airplane in the back that was used as a classroom.  He showed me a camp manager’s report, which included reports on employment, illness, demographic information about residents, and other details of life in the camp, which I will try to copy before I leave

·       A visit to the old community room at the camp.  It is filled with old objects and the spirit surrounding them.   I suggested that it might be a great place to do a ‘teaser’ for the show for the residents, as a way to encourage folks to come down to Arvin to see it.

·       A conversation with Earl Shelton, who came West with his family and got stuck in Arizona because three of their tires were ‘down to the rim.’  He said that they drove two days and nights and I imagined the physical strength and necessity motivating the driver, and what it must have felt like for a little boy to wake up in the middle of the night and look out at the stars.

·       A production of ‘Children of the Dustbowl’ a lovely readers theater production based on a book of the same name, and which featured very good  music: guitar, accordion, and banjo.  The group is largely made up of one family (Dyanne Durr directed it and two of the three musicians were her children).  Dyanne also has done a musical adaptation of Woodie Guthrie, is a descendant of a Dust Bowl migrants, and teaches at local colleges.  She was very excited to learn about the possibility of a Cornerstone play coming to the area.

SUNDAY

I began Sunday by visiting a Spanish-speaking church on the North side of Arvin (Primera Iglesia Bautista), which is generally the poorer side of town, as noted in Ashley’s report.  It was a large room that seats about 200, spare and with beautiful simple multi-colored glass windows.  There were about 15 congregants, mostly bi-lingual, although the Bible Study was all in Spanish (my Spanish is good enough for simple conversations, and to tell folks about Cornerstone and what the goals are for the project, as well as my own background; a lot of the service I didn’t follow).  Afterward, I spoke to the Pastor who told me he lives in Bakersfield but his church sent him down here to increase the size of the congregation.

It was a sleepy Sunday, with the streets mostly empty and many of the stores closed.  I visited a party supply store and spoke to the owner about the community.  He didn’t speak English, but we talked for a while about his history in the area.  He said that it is very hard to find jobs here, unless you work in the fields, and so many young people leave the area. He told me that there had been an accident at a nearby plant, and that two area young people had been killed.  Paula and Mark said that that they had seen a protest about the same thing the day before. 

Later, I bought a newspaper and found more details: On October 12, Armando Ramirez (from Arvin), a worker at the Community Recycling and Resource Co. (near Lamont) entered into a cement drainage tunnel and died from exposure to toxic fumes. Armando was 16 and was working under papers that said he was 30.  His brother, Eladio, who was twenty-two, went in to rescue him and passed out.  He was taken into the hospital and died on Saturday.   According to one report I read ‘the two brothers had recently complained to family members about strong odors at the facility and they had been given only painters’ masks to protect them from the fumes’. (www.wasterecyclingnews.com  10/14).  Cal-OSHA and the US Department of Labor are investigating.    The plant composts organic waste from items such as produce from grocery stores and tree trimmings. 

My instinct about how to respond to such an enormous tragedy in the heart of the community we’re thinking about working in is to wait.  I cannot fathom the sense of loss and outrage, and I don’t know what kind of investigation is happening.  At the same time, it’s impossible not to be shaken by it, and also not to see it in the context of the stories of Dust Bowl workers I had just heard the day before. 

Later in the day, on the advice of the owner of the Party Supply store, I visited the Becerra Family Store.  His store cashes checks, and also sells cowboy hats and shoes.  Pablo (he didn’t give his last name, but I believe it is Becerra) is in his eighties and has lived in Arvin most of his life (he moved from Mexico when he was young).  He told me about working for Digiorgio Farms (which employed thousands of people in the 30s and 40s- Bob England and his family also worked there).  He’s a warm, generous man and I think will be a wonderful resource.  By the gestures and smiles of the people who walked by as we were talking, he seems like a pillar in the community.  He couldn’t talk much, but he invited me to come back later this week to talk more about the history of Arvin.

I ended the day by visiting the home of Bob England, in Bakersfield.  As I got there, he literally had an engine for a Model A Ford on a harness that he was installing (photo above – the Model A was the preferred car for Okis moving west).  His lot is an array of woodpiles, car parts, and cars.  He says he owns (I believe) 45 cars.   NOTE: When I asked him if we could use one of his cars for the play, he said yes.  He also said that if we break down the set and have extra lumber he would take it off our hands.

Our conversation was long and detailed.  I recorded about an hour of particularly strong stories.  He said that if we do a play without talking about movie theaters in Arvin, we’d be missing the story (The Rancho was for white audiences, there was another movie theater for Mexican audiences – Bob lived in a largely Mexican neighborhood, and would tramp out front of the white theater and get free admission).  He also told the story of living with his grandmother in a two room shack with his siblings after his father was in jail and his mother had left them.  He described a Christmas tree in their home, which their grandmother brought them one year: tumbleweed decorated with Christmas icicles.

NEXT STEPS

Contact the folks at the Arvin Migrant Center to see about meeting with residents

Calling ‘Building Healthy Communities’ (Funded by the California Endowment) about attending a meeting at the Sunset School on Thursday night (see attached)

Follow up with contacts of Bob England, especially Charlotte Davis, who runs the Savings and Thrift in Arvin

Calling Nelda Oldham, WC Stampes, and Nazar Kooner

Bringing Cornerstone flyers to folks in the downtown Arvin business community