My mother had consoled me after I had lost my prized notepad in that fire. I used the small notepad to jot down words I needed to learn for school and memorized them while I worked in the fields so that I would not be too far behind when I started classes for the first time every year in November. She had reminded me to be thankful to God that none of us in the family was injured and pointed out that all was not lost because I had learned everything I had written in my notepad by heart.
When I returned to my dorm, I told Father Shanks about our house burning down and asked him to pray for my family.
A few days later, when I left for home, he gave me a sympathy note and one hundred dollars from Father William Perkins, vice president of Student Services. The note read; "Yon and your family are in my prayers."
Shortly after I arrived at my brother's house, he and I drove to see the rest of my family in our new rental home. It was a two-bedroom tract house built in the late 1940s on the west side of the city. When I walked in the door, they were as happy to see me as I was to see them. My mother looked tired but calm. She was wearing lipstick, which I had never seen her use before. "I am glad to see you." She gave me a hug.
"I am sorry the house burned down." I wasn't sure what else to say.
"Así es la vida, mijo," she said. Such is life, son. "Pero no hay mal que por bien no venga." But every dark cloud has a silver lining. She told me how it was more comfortable living there than in Bonetti Ranch. The house had a toilet and shower and the water was drinkable. "And the rent is only a little bit higher," she added.
"I'm glad, Mamá." I handed her the envelope that Father Perkins had given me. "It's a gift from the Jesuits."
She opened it. "Gracias a Dios!" she exclaimed. Her eyes welled up. "This will help us get a few more things we need. And with your summer earnings, we'll be okay."
Rubén and Rorra excitedly told me that they now could sleep longer in the mornings because they could walk to school instead of taking a bus. Torito talked about his freshman year in high school. "I wanted to take shop classes," he said, "but Mr. Penney, my counselor, told me I had to take college prep courses. 'You have to go to college,' he told me."
"Good," I said.
"Torito has a girlfriend," Rorra said.
My brother blushed and rolled his eyes.
"Show Panchito her picture," Rubén said. He and Rorra glanced at each other and giggled.
"Go on, mijo," my mother said. "Show it to him, Marcy is a very nice and beautiful girl."
Torito went to his room and brought back a small color photo of his girlfriend and handed it to me. She had a round face, brown skin, short jet black hair, and almond-shaped eyes.
"She's beautiful," I said, passing it back to him.
"Marcy is really smart," Roberto said. "She helps Torito with his homework."
I was surprised that Trampita did not tease Torito about Marcy's helping him with his schoolwork. He listened to our conversation but remained silent.
"How are things going?" I asked after a few minutes, directing my attention to him.
"Okay," he said, glancing at a smoke-damaged crucifix hanging on the wall that was salvaged from the fire.
"Just okay?"
"I like it here, but I miss Bonetti Ranch."
"Why?" Roberto asked.
"It's hard to explain. I've written a poem about it," he added.
"Read it to us," I said.
"No, I'll give it to you. You can read it later."
As Roberto and I were leaving, Trampita gave me his poem in a large manila envelope. That evening, before going to bed, I read it. The title was "Mi Casa No Longer Shames Me."
Mouth is wet
With seasons met
Recalling ...
Living in barracks
Of war's pretense
Trophies of ruins,
Old and worn
To house the scorned
For being born
Poor.
***
After school we were the first
Off the bus.
My friends asked where I lived.
Ashamed I would say:
"That one." Then I would get off
At a house that was
Not my own;
White like snow,
Grass like jade,
And walked home ashamed and confused;
Feeling used.
***
I recall that house
Ashamed I was
Of where I lived.
I never told my mamá
For I could not understand
This feeling I knew
Was not right
That I should feel ashamed
Of the warmth she gave,
Of the home she made.
***
We finally moved to town.
It was after that night
That I came home
And found our house
Burning down.
The sky was red
With flames it spat,
Flashing lights, fire trucks,
Faces made of stone.
All hope gone,
Destroyed by the flames
Of mighty feat.
Eyes watering, flooding our sighs
Already so familiar with pain,
Wondering why our tears did not
Extinguish those flames.
My soul died again and again.
I've visited that place again
Many times.
Still, families live there.
New faces, familiar sounds,
Familiar souls.
Yes! I recall that house.
The casa that no longer
Shames me.
The next morning I drove to Bonetti Ranch and visited the place where our barrack once stood. Only bits of broken glass and scorched metal and twisted wire and ashes remained. The large pepper tree that had provided shade was also damaged. Its charred branches hung down, mourning the loss of a good friend. I remained there for a long time remembering our old barrack, which provided us with shelter for so many years, protecting us from cold, wind, and rain, and from an outside world that at times was confusing and unfriendly.
In Solidarity
At the beginning of the third quarter of my senior year, I made a decision with which my mother strongly disagreed and which affected my midterm grade in my ethics class: I decided to support César Chavez's efforts to unionize farm workers. "We'll lose our jobs; we'll get fired if we go on strike, mijo," my mother told me. "Who's going to feed our family while we're out of work?" I explained to her that by workers' going on strike and joining the National Farm Worker's Association growers would be forced to provide us and other farm workers with unemployment insurance and better working conditions and guarantee a minimum wage. "Ay, mijo, piénsalo bien," she said. Think about it carefully. "Growers have all the power. Poor farm workers like us don't have a chance against them." I stopped arguing with her out of respect. Besides, I understood her fears.
I became more convinced I had made the right decision after attending a forum on the issue of farm workers that took place at noon on Monday, April 4, in front of the student union. Father Tenant Wright, a young and energetic Jesuit priest who organized the event, stood in the middle of a small group of students and asked, "Is it necessary to form a union to represent farm labor?" He looked around and shouted the same question, beckoning students who were passing by to join the growing crowd. As the gathering grew, I spotted Laura several feet away. I elbowed my way through and stood next to her. I was glad she was there.
Father Wright explained the purpose of the forum. He said that the Delano grape strike began seven months before when farm workers in Delano walked off the farms of table grape growers, demanding wages on a level with the federal minimum wage. The strike was being led by César Chavez and Dolores Huerta of the National Farm Workers Association. They were asking farm workers to join their tabor union. "Again, is this necessary?" Father Wright
asked. "To help us answer this question, I have invited two people to speak to this issue."
Father Wright introduced Frank Bergon, the son of a grower, who presented the growers' position, and Les Grube, an egg distributor and longtime activist in Catholic welfare programs, who defended the NFWA's viewpoint. Bergon argued that the farm laborers were already well paid and that the number of strikers was small.
"How can he say that?" I whispered, rolling my eyes and shaking my head. Farm laborers were paid eighty-five cents an hour and sometimes less.
"Why don't you say something?" Laura whispered.
I felt my heart pounding and a fire in my stomach, but I was still shy about speaking out in groups. I knew I was disappointing Laura and wished I had not been with her at that moment. She excused herself and left for class.
After the debate I picked up a flyer from the NFWA representative and hurried back to my room to prepare for my ethics class that afternoon. I completed the reading assignment in our textbook Rig/it and Reason and then read the flyer. It was an open invitation from César Chavez to join him on a march to Sacramento.
On March 17, 1966, the National Farm Workers Association will begin a 300-mile "Peregrinación" from Delano to Sacramento. It is a march of farm workers. It will begin in Delano and will involve workers from all parts of the state.... It will be a pilgrimage by members of all races and religions. In order to be successful, we will need the help of our friends around the state and nation. We ask you to ... join ws for a day on the march and especially for the last day in Sacramento. Although this is primarily a march of farm workers, it is important that all who have a concern for social justice and human dignity demonstrate their unity with us.
I set the flyer down on my desk and paced the floor, thinking about whether or not I should join the march. I had learned in Sodality and my religion and philosophy classes that it was a moral obligation to fight for social justice. Father Shanks had told us that leaders must have a strong sense of personal responsibility and give something of themselves to make a difference in society. In my mind joining the march was the right thing to do, but I also felt this in my heart as I thought of my family and other migrant laborers working in the fields from dawn to dusk, seven days a week, living in army tents and suffering hunger during cold winter months when there was no work. I remembered my mother weeping and praying for Torito, who was dying, and we had no money to take him to the doctor. I remembered my father agonizing from constant back pain and reaching out to me when I found him alone in the storage shed. I remembered Gabriel, a bracero, being fired because he refused to tie a rope around his waist and pull a plow like an ox. I heard his words in my head: "Diaz me puede correr. Pero no puede forzarme a hacer lo que no es justo. El no puede quitarme la dignidad. Eso no lo puede hacer," Diaz can fire me. But he can't force me to do what isn't right. He can't take away my dignity. That he can't do.
A wave of sadness and anger came over me. I had to join the pilgrimage to Sacramento.
At the end of my ethics class, I told Father Charles McQuillan, the instructor, that I would be missing class on Thursday because I had decided to join the march to Sacramento. He reminded me that we had an exam on that day. "I am assuming you thought about this carefully and know the consequences," he said, adjusting his Roman collar.
"Yes. But I was hoping you would let me make up the test."
"You know I don't give makeups."
"Yes, I know, but..."
"So, is sacrificing your grade to go on the march worth it?" he asked, looking me in the eye.
I didn't hesitate. "It is."
"Then go ahead. Sometimes we have to make sacrifices for what we believe in." He smiled and shook my hand.
I thanked him and headed to see Jerry McGrath, the dean of students, who had hired me again that year to be a prefect. I needed his approval to leave campus. I was glad that he was already aware of the march and supported it. He authorized my request. I then asked Tim Taormina, my roommate with whom I shared prefect responsibilities, if he would cover for me. Tim agreed to take over my duties in exchange for my standing in for him the following two weekends.
Three days before Easter, on Holy Thursday morning, April 7, at five a.m., jerry McGrath drove four other students and me in an eight-passenger van for an hour and a half until we spotted the tail end of the pilgrimage. It was a long, thin, serpentine line inching its way along the flat Central Valley on Highway 99, near the city of Lodi. He dropped us off and we joined the peaceful journey to Sacramento, I hurried toward the front of the procession, leaving my schoolmates behind.
Several feet in front of me walked César Chavez. He was flanked by farm workers carrying the American flag, the Mexican flag, the flag from the Philippines, and a large banner of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Excited to see him, I tried to bypass other marchers to get closer, but one of the monitors stopped me and asked me to fall back in line. I ended up behind a young man who wore shorts, a white T-shirt, a Giants cap, and a red armband with an Aztec black eagle. I looked behind me and saw an older man who reminded me of my father. His face and hands were weather-beaten. He wore khaki pants, a long-sleeve shirt, and a sweat-stained cap. In each hand he carried a huelga, a flag. When I smiled at him, he stretched out his arm to hand me one of his Strike flags.
The blazing sun hung above the pale blue sky. I could feel the blistering asphalt on the bottoms of my tired feet as we continued walking by hundreds of acres of green fields that stretched for miles on either side of Highway 99. My family had traveled this same road every year, for nine years, looking for work during the grape and cotton seasons. We had passed through Tulare, Visalia, Selma, Fowler, Parlier, and Fresno. At a distance, I spotted a yellow crop-duster sweeping over the fields, leaving a trail of gray clouds behind. It reminded me of picking strawberries and having to crouch down as crop-dusters flew above our heads and sprayed the fields with chemicals that caused our eyes to burn and water for days. Today I felt anger and pity when I saw farm workers bent over thinning sugar beets with the same type of short-handle hoes that Roberto and I used when we thinned lettuce in Santa Maria. I could feel their back pain from stooping all day. The farm workers slowly straightened up and watched us. "Vénganse con nosotors," one of the organizers yelled out, trying to persuade them to join the march. The farm workers waved and continued working. The} must be afraid, like my mother, to lose their jobs, I thought.
As passersby honked their car horns and waved, I smiled and raised my flag. One pickup driver flipped us off and yelled out the window, "Go back to Mexico!"
What an idiot, I thought, fuming inside. Along the way, local supporters joined us for a while; others offered us rice and bean tacos and water for lunch.
That night we gathered outside of Gait, a small town where the organizers had planned a program for us. They passed out flyers to residents, asking them to boycott table grapes and all Schenley products until Schenley recognized the National Farm Workers Association. We were given copies of "El Plan de Delano," which described the purpose for the march to Sacramento. We chanted "Sí se puede." Yes we can. We sang songs like "De Colores." Luis Valdez, a stocky and vigorous young man with jet black hair and a Zapata-style mustache, jumped onto a makeshift wooden platform and began reading "El Plan de Delano" in a deep and powerful voice.
This is the beginning of a social movement in fact and not in pronouncements. We seek our basic, God-given rights as human beings. Because we have suffered—and are not afraid to suffer—in order to survive, we are ready to give up everything, even our lives, in our fight for social justice. We shail do it without violence because that is our destiny...
We seek, and have, the support of the Churc/i in what we do. At the head of the Pilgrimage we carry LA VIR-GEN DE LA GUADALUPE because she is ours, all ours, Patroness of the Mexican people. We also carry the Sacred Cross and the Star of David because we are not sectarians, and because we ask the help and prayers of all religions. All men are brothers, sons of the same God ...
Our men, women, and children have suffered not only the basic brutality of stoop labor, and the most obvious injustices of the system; they have also suffered the desperation of knowing that the system caters to the greed of callous men and not to our needs. Now we will suffer for the purpose of ending the poverty, the miser), and the injustice, with the hope that our children will not be exploited as we have been...
We shall unite. We have learned the meaning of UNITY. We know why these United States are just that—united. The strength of the poor is a!so in union. We know that the poverty of the Mexican or Filipino worker in California is the same as that of all farm workers across the country, the Negroes and poor whites, the Puerto Ricans, Japanese, and Arabians; in short, all of the races that comprise the oppressed minorities of the United States. The majority of the people on our Pilgrimage are of Mexican descent, but the triumph of our race depends on a national association of all farm workers...
We shall strike ... We want to be equal with a!f the working men in the nation; we want a just wage, better working conditions, a decent future for our children. To those who oppose us... we say that we are going to continue fighting until we die, or we win. WE SHALL OVERCOME.
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