Community Readings in April

Will MacAdams, Angie Kamel and I set up and attended a series of small community readings of the current draft of Will’s script for our Arvin community play.  Will completed a first rough draft of the script, Flor, in late March.  Since then he’s taken that script apart, divided it (for working purposes only) into three parts and re-written a lot of it.  For our readings this past weekend we had Part 1— pages 1-21 in All English and in All Spanish and Part 2- 21 pages of 9 scenes (English only at this point).  The direction of Part 3- the climax and ending of the play—is one of the things that Will hoped to learn more about from the readings this weekend.

Friday evening (4-7p) we were hosted at the home of Don & Carol Burkett who also provided a bbq dinner.  Will has spent a lot of time with a group of friends who mostly share a history of having moved to Arvin as children during the 1930s. They all graduated from Arvin High School and many of them taught there too.  This group was the majority of our participants at the first community reading on Friday night, April 20.  Here’s who was there:  Don & Carol Burkett, Jim & Janell Wren, Wayne & Barbara Slusser, Reford & Liz Hutson, Larry & Brenda Hallum, Barney Meyer, Betty Polk, Toni DeRosa-- the editor of the Lamont Reporter & Arvin Tiller newspapers, and Maria Morales Mercado.  (14 community members, plus 3 CTC.)

Maria came to all three readings this past weekend.  It was terrific to have her at Don’s since she was the only Latina (only self-identified Latina?) there and she was comfortable with that role.  Some of these guys were her teachers at AHS and she was classmates with Don’s daughter.

[One discussion on the way there was about what kind of beer to bring.  One might assume Bud or PBR or Coors was the beer of choice given how these guys like to frequently joke about their low class and early poverty.  One might also a assume that with a craft beer there would be another kind of joking and possible disdain.  We opted for Sierra Nevada as a middle of the road choice and all assumptions turned out to be true. Sierra Nevada was “fancy.” Will countered by pointing out the deluxe far-from-impoverished setting of our get together…  But yes, the guys had Bud Light, Miller Light and Coors on hand.]

The Burketts home is in a lush property on the Kern River in far NE Bakersfield.  To get there you drive by some crazy views of the oilfields that look kind of like a desolate grey planet.  (Three of the six largest oil fields in the world are in in Kern County.) We spent most of the first hour there sitting out by the river with just a few of the guys- host and early arrivers.  There we enjoyed conversation that included opera simulcast (Don loves it and takes any of the guys he can get to go with him), cds bought off the tv, and the differences between Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, etc., among other things.

The reading itself didn’t actually start until 6pm!  There were some slow moments throughout due to age and eyesight of the readers.  Some folks chose not to read.  A lot of the response was about their own specific experiences of farm work and language (ie: we say Cut Grapes not Pick Grapes, and Pick Up potatoes not pick potatoes).  Lots of detail notes and more stories of experiences were shared.  Then we had hot dogs and salads and the gang switched from beer to wine- those who were drinking.  Will, Angie and I each had different conversations with folks.  Angie learned that Janell was recently diagnosed with possible dementia or alzheimers and she and Jim were dealing with her memory difficulties with grace and a positive front.  I talked with the Hallums- Larry is a fan of cowboy poetry. I told them about CTC other Arvin project focusing on school discipline and the high expulsion rate to which Larry responded that anyone who gets expelled should be. I wonder if Brenda, who is teaches 8^th grade English in B’field, agrees, but we didn’t discuss it further.  Will was invited by Wayne into a debate about Obama but everyone else told Wayne to back off.  Maria and Jim talked for a long time.

Saturday morning (9a to noon) we were scheduled for a reading at the Lamont Library expecting Maria & Sam Mercado, Gabriel Garcia, Luz Peña who runs the So Kern Sol journalism group, and 8 of the So Kern Sol youth.  We only  had 2 kids from So Kern Sol—Clara and Berenice.  (6 community members total, plus 3 CTC.)  Sam Mercado grew up in Lamont and Clara & Berenice both live there, too, so that was a cool perspective.  Maria dominated the conversation a bit.  We hoped to hear more from Berenice and Clara but since they are both not very outgoing speakers it was hard to make windows for them to contribute.  They both were very engaged and interested and did have good questions comments, I just wished we could have heard more from them. 

We did have conversations with them about maybe CTC helping to arrange a ride for them and some of the other SoKernSol of DHF kids to come down to see Café Vida, which I think they’d really enjoy.  I also spoke to them about the idea of spending time with our institute classes.  I let them know that we see them as potential leaders in their community and they could be involved in our Arvin School Discipline project if they are interested.  They seemed interested.  (These two young women don’t share their emotions or thoughts in their faces or body language with us so you mostly can only rely on what they say and you have to be patient for them to say anything.)

Saturday evening (5 to 8pm) we were hosted at the home of Monica Martinez.  Her dad Lupe is a monolingual Spanish speaker and a farmworker and we scheduled a few factors of this reading around him.  He did not attend though.  We planned for this to be a reading where Spanish speakers would be prioritized and there were many Spanish speakers, they just also spoke English.  Here’s who was there:  Monica Martinez, Gabriel Garcia, Sue Calderon, Ariceli Aguilar, and Paola Fernandez (all former AHS drama students current college-age-ish friends).  Gabriel’s brother David the botanist (AHS 14), Maria Mercado (AHS 75), Javier Arreola the translator, and Gene Lundquist (AHS 60) and his wife Susan.  (10 community members + 3 CTC)

The Lundquists are among the last of a dwindled Arvin Congregational Church that is in process of granting their facilities to a Latino church group.  Gene’s family was farming in Arvin since 1917—pre-Dustbowl migration.  Javier joined us after doing in person translation from 8a to 4pm at a parenting workshop and he was fried.  It was also very hot on Saturday.  Our group was just small enough to move inside to the a/c’d living room rather than sit in the growing (setting) sun on the patio.  This was a very warm and sincere group of people.  We read Part 1 in Spanish.  Those of us who don’t speak Spanish followed along in the English version.  Everyone joined in reading Part 2 in English.  This group seemed the most connected to the script and the most moved by it.  Javier was very happy to have heard it read in Spanish, said it made sense to him in lots of new ways.  He seemed elevated by the experience.  People shared a variety of feedback, mostly answering questions.  At both Saturday readings we asked the group to write on an index card what they think the story of the play is.  Will collected them to read later.  We checked out from this reading by sharing 1 thing each person hoped for this play, either in the content or the experience of it.  Will recorded this.  Afterward we shared dinner that CTC had brought and Maria had brought chocolate for dessert.  We ate outside and there was more conversation but more silliness and relaxing.  Monica and Gabe are performing in a theater for youth production at CSUB and they did a command performance for us of their parts sans giant hippo costumes, sans all the other cast.  It was a really fun way to end our full visit to Arvin.

There are so many things that happen, so many things that get witnessed and/or shared on these visits.  These are just some basics here for you.  Feel free to ask Will or Angie or me about anything you’d like to hear more about.

Next steps:  Friends will share flyers about our project at next weekend’s Wildflower Festival.  Will is working on completing Parts 2 & 3 of the script. We’ll have a bigger more public—invite everyone who’s interested-- community reading of that draft (and, I hope, an in-house read at CTC too) in late May early June.

Paula D