i've never really considered myself an activist, but friends around me say i am because of the life i've lead and things i've done the past few years.
my first teaching job after grad school was working for the tulare county department of migrant education, as an outreach coordinator. my job was to seek out families in the central tulare county area and help the children learn solid academic skills in both english and spanish. the conditions were tough that summer: hot, insect-infested, and poverty everywhere. and i loved every minute of it.
i moved from farmworker camp to farmworker camp with a printout of families known to be in the area. i had to assure most families that i was not "la migra" looking to bust them and send them back to the hills of oaxaca. i met entire families that spoke little english, as well as families that spoke neither english nor spanish. these families were from all over mexico that retained their indigenous languages, of which no one outside their family had ease of communication. when i would search for these families by knocking on other peoples doors, i would often have this exchange:
"buenos dias, señora. estoy buscando la familia M______. Sabe usted donde se los encuentra?
"¡ai! ¿esos tontos? se viven mas afuera de aqui."
i would always see a little row of shacks on a hill, and i figured it must have been them. i would drive to the foot of these hills, get out of my car, but there would always be some mean pit-bull guarding their shack. i would leave for fear of my life. i did manage to meet one of these families and they knew more english than they did spanish. they were beautiful people.
self-esteem was always a hard thing to teach the kids. one time i was teaching a family of 6 kids. the oldest was in high school and the youngest was in the early grades. the youngest one was smart and loud and knew how to get attention. the oldest one was the leader of the group, and the other two boys and girls listened to the oldest one and the little one fight like cat and dog.
the oldest one had difficulty working with basic math and was very embarrassed about it. the little one was smart and learned quickly and the oldest was embarrassed that a little shit could be smarter. the little one started tutoring the older one, but it was useless. finally, the big kid threw his books to the ground in desperation and asked:
"¿Y porqué tengo que aprender esas cosas?"
and the little one fired back:
"¡para contar cajas de uvas!"
i thought it was a disturbing reply because it told me that the little one had already accepted his lot in life that he was destined to be a farmworker like his older brothers and sisters and parents. i told them no, that doesn't have to happen and that you can have any kind of life if you want. it was a hard day.
i was warned about the clusters of families that had at least one member suffering or had died from cancer. the farm owners don't like to talk about it and people who buy their produce from the major farms and grocery superstores don't want to talk about it either.
i stopped by one house that stood on the edge of town. the street was covered with dust and the sun radiated unmercifully. i knocked on the door of the house and an old man of about 7 years answered. i told him who i was and why i was there, and that i needed to spend some time with his little sister, too.
i spent about half an hour with the children on their porch, and the father came out and introduced himself. i could sense he had the deepest respect for me because i was teaching his children, and for a moment, took their minds of the impending tragedy to come to the family. the father invited me in and offered me water and to feed me, but i had to politely refuse.
the father and i worked out a schedule where i could come and visit the children while the parents were there because the father had to take his wife into visalia for chemotherapy. the mother had leukemia and was very ill. a profound sadness over took me as the father wiped a tear from his eye. i finished the lesson and i gathered my things to leave. i said good bye, and as i left the doorway, a balding woman slowly emerged from a room, and picked up a broom that was leaning against the wall and began to sweep the floors of her kitchen. a mother's work is truly never done.
after grad school, i joined the VISTA program. VISTA stands for Volunteers In Service To America. it's sorta like a domestic peace corps. i had applied to the peace corps after i graduated from uci, but i was really disappointed when i found out what the program was all about. the peace corps wants clean-cut, super-american boys and girls to suffer with ringworm between their toes in some god-foresaken jungle and spread the gospel of americanism. i believe in helping people in this great world, but not with a lame ulterior motive behind it.
while in my last semester of grad school, i heard about vista. i wasn't sure what i was going to do with a master's degree in linguistics. i thought teaching was my one and only career path and vocation, but there was nothing wrong with that. after i joined, i took a position with this little school called "colegio popular" that was run by this aging latino berkeley radical. i had a lot of respect for him and learned a lot from him, and he was a role model for latinos everywhere.
my position was to help develop curriculum to market and sell to people, mainly farmworkers. to learn english. i agreed with the principle, but not the practices going on. the director was so caught up in how things used to be done in the '60s and couldn't fathom why things had changed in the 80's and 90's.
at the time i took two other volunteer positions. i taught an esl class at fresno city college, and undergraduate linguistics at fresno state, both which will always be fond memories for me. i was also living with my boyfriend and the love of my life, derek, who was a student at both schools as well. colegio popular was a trip. i learned about the farmworker movement, learned about compassion, and learned something about my own heritage.
the director didn't like me volunteering so much outside the colegio, and i understood why, but for me it was a survival tactic. no one would hire me without any real teaching experience, and colegio popular, born and run of good intention, was beginning to jade me with its institutionalized homophobia, sexism, and racism. why does being latino or chicano, to so many, mean you have to embrace these things?
the director and i had a falling out after 8 months in the project. he felt i belonged in the university and had no place in latino movements, especially the chicano movement. here was a man i respected, but after time, he was just another one of those "i am more mexican/chicano/latino than you" and made me feel 3 inches tall. i have no idea if colegio popular is still there.
29 december 1997
i drove through fresno on my way back home during the christmas holidays. i stopped by my friend david's house in the tower district. we went in search of food and took a walk down fulton street. i had a feeling that the colegio was gone. i looked around at the empty buildings and homeless people pushing their possessions in shopping carts.
the chinese restaurant where we used to get pretty decent meals for under 5 bucks was still there. we gabbed so much and i looked off into the horizon and saw that the old pg&e building was bought and refurbished and now alive again. we approached 16th street and i saw the building where i spent eight months of my life. it had been taken over by other non-profit agencies. visibly it looked like a folklórico troup moved in. i can imagine all those queens in a room that was at one time overflowing with the testosterone of macho, sexist latino men. gone were the lines waiting to sign-up and attend our english classes. gone was lorena trying to prepare for class and looking for her son. no más.
i asked david if he had ever heard of the 'mexicatessen' that was just down the block. david said no and that gave us all the more reason to continue our stroll down vacated downtown fresno. the mexicatessen is this little tiny shoebox on fulton street that has a very very limited menu and lunch rush hours only. they serve like 3 kinds of burritos cheap and THAT'S IT. they are only open like 11-1 and are always packed. but not today. the mexicatessen is owned by this middle-aged pocho and his mother who got up early every morning to make the dozens and dozens of tortillas need to make their sales.
downtown was one of the saddest places i had been in a very long time and i still had some bitter feelings towards tomás and his colegio. in many ways i don't feel sorry for him because the 1960's are over and gone with and that different kinds of vision and optimism are needed to deal with the greedy nineties. i wonder if he got his ph.d. i wonder where jorge is and did he marry kim and finish his master's or go back to mexico and forgot it all. i wonder if lorena broke outta that damn co-dependent relationship and got herself a life. i hope she became a teacher like she planned because she was damned good at it. i wonder if those sexist pigs jose luis and george got their cajones cut off yet.
to be continued...
updated 25 january 1998