Frank P. Barajas

National Park Service César Chávez Special Resource Study

2011-04-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

Image: Oxnard CSO in Oxnard 1958 In 1958 César Chávez returned to Oxnard, California to organize a Community Service Organization chapter in Ventura County. The project was funded by the United Packinghouse Workers of America to solidify and expand its union base in the region. As Chávez conducted his house meeting campaign it be became clear to him that the agricultural industrial complex’s reliance upon the Bracero Program both exploited Mexican guest workers and undermined the status of domestic farm labor. In fact, Oxnard’s Buena Vista Bracero camp, created by the grower sponsored Ventura County Farm Labor Association, was reputedly the largest of its kind in the nation.

The next year the Ventura County CSO based in Oxnard exposed the collusion of federal and state agencies with the agricultural industrial complex in not carrying out the protections and regulations of Public Law 78 that governed the Bracero Program. The Ventura County CSO and the UPWA, for a very brief moment, however, were able to ensure that domestic farm workers were given priority to be employed. This short-lived victory inspired César Chávez to organize a farm workers union after his beloved CSO refused to expand its attention to this area of need. The result ultimately was the creation of the United Farm Workers movement that served as a major voice for not only farm workers but all concerned with the condition of los de abajo.

So if you are interested in making communities in Ventura County recognized National Park Service sites significant to César Chávez legacy and the farm labor movement attend the May 10th, 2011 National Park Service Special Resource Study meeting at the Café on A-Rodolfo F. Acuña Gallery and Cultural Arts Center from 6:30-8:30pm. For more details visit:
http://www.nps.gov/pwro/chavez/mtgschedule.htm

Con Safos
fpb

How I became a Historian

2011-01-04T19:28:00.000-08:00

I am periodically asked the questions, “Why did you become a teacher?” or “Why did you choose History as a major?” More fitting queries, however, would ask “How” I decided to become a teacher or focus on the study of History. This is because my decision was pragmatic. I did not have the complete privilege to choose.

Like so many of my Chicano peers, I was not prepared for college out of high school. A big chunk of my gente dropped out (at rates hovering just below or above 50%). I lost contact with many after the ninth grade. For much of my first two years at the community college, I took classes in English and Math that qualified me for transferrable courses to the university. Back then they were openly called remedial classes—I am not sure what they are called now. I was, however, honest with myself about my (in)abilities. So when I received a B grade in Western Civilization I said to myself, “Hey I can do this. I can read and write at a proficient level (I feel). I’ll major in History.”

My parents always encouraged me to go to college after all, even though mom has a Mexican grade school education and dad still wonders how he was granted an A.A. degree. I also knew that getting a university degree would make them happy. It would also buy me time from getting a job. Mom explained the deal as I approached the end of my senior year: “You continue your education or a trabajar!” It’s nice being one of two kids. So I became a History major because I believed it would enable me to survive in academe. After taking a Chicano Studies class at Moorpark College, I also sensed that the study of History could help me understand why very few Chicanas and Chicanos held positions of authority in and out of school.

Along the way I realized that I desired a career that offered significant security from unemployment. Memories of tension in the household when my dad was laid off from his job played a significant role in my decision to become an educator. Growing up, I was not aware of teachers being fired—at least not for carrying out their duties. Sure teachers worked side jobs to supplement their salaries, but they were always employed.

As a History major I also flirted with the notion of becoming a lawyer. Be a teacher or become a lawyer. What else does a History major do? I briefly joined Fresno State’s Chicanos In Law club. But after I received my LSAT score I knew the career of an esquire was not in the cards. “I will teach at the high school,” I said to myself. To enter a teacher credential program at the Cal. State all I needed to do was to pass the CBEST. How hard could that be? Well, it can be difficult if your math skills are not up to speed. I eventually passed the Math segment of the CBEST—only after taking a College Algebra class at Oxnard College as a post-baccalaureate. I felt validated by the world of standardized tests—a mundo that my people do very poorly in, for a host of reasons.

While I was at Fresno State I stopped by the office of a History professor who advised students on the social science waiver program for prospective teachers. He asked me to return as he had a migraine. I never did. After I compared the added course work required to become a social science teacher with that needed for a Masters degree, graduate school was more attractive. And it required no CBEST. I finalized this path as my undergraduate mentor-professor expressed his expectation for me to pursue a Masters. So I did. The life of a history professor appealed to me as I once read a career guidance article that stated that History professors had one the longest life expectancies. In addition to this, in regularly walking past the office of one of my favorite History professors I often saw him in his chair with his legs kicked up on his desk as he read a Chinese language newspaper. That’s when I said to myself, “That’s what I want to do.”

After I graduated with a Masters in History, I returned to Oxnard to search for work. I couldn’t teach because you needed a credential to do so in the K-12 system. So I worked for UPS unloading trailers and loading trucks. This was the most physically demanding work I ever experienced. I also went through a teacher mentorship program at the Ventura County Community College. I shadowed a History professor who taught Western Civilization classes. This experience helped me land my first full-time gig at Cypress College.

During one of my probationary evaluations at Cypress my boss encouraged me to obtain my doctorate. So I applied to the Claremont Graduate School. While I was at Fresno State my mentor spoke highly about its Ph.D. program. Claremont was not terribly far from Buena Park so I applied and was accepted.

To be continued.

fpb

A Chicano Diet Private

2010-11-23T19:34:00.000-08:00

There are two kinds of diet privates at Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego: those that must lose weight and the others who are required to add more. I was considered a fat body even though I was a California Community College state runner up grappler at the 177 lbs. weight class in 1984. But according to the USMC body mass index, I was a panzón. So the Second Battalion platoon number of my gray recruit sweatshirt was ignominiously spray painted with two red bars marking me a diet private. During chow time the diet privates, fat and skinny bodies, lined up to present their trays to a DI (Drill Instructor) for approval. The fat bodies gave their bread, sweets, and delicious fatty food to the double-ration skinny body privates and they gave us their bland waxed beans, spinach, or corn. Before this, I never cared for vegetables but I came to like them.

Suffering from a sugar withdraw, I hid sugar packets into my cargo pockets and consumed the sucrose in the middle of night. Now I realize how addictive sugar can be. I am glad that I was never caught. If I had, I imagine an outcome similar to the scene in Full Metal Jacket when DI Hartman busted Private Pyle with a jelly doughnut in his footlocker during a pre-turn in inspection.

Ironically, I came to be proud of my diet private status. In my final PFT (Physical Fitness Test) I scored a maximum 300 points by finishing a 3 mile run under 18 minutes, kipping 20 pull-ups, and completing 100 abdominal crunches within 2 minutes. My score, however, was mixed up with that of a private with a lower score. But I knew better than to object. I learned early in the, then, 11 weeks of Marine basic training that anonymity was a virtue.

fpb

Sir, Yes, Sir.

2010-07-13T18:26:00.000-07:00

In the summer of 1985, I decided to follow a friend, who followed his brother, into the United States Marine Corps as a reservist. For those who do not know, Marine reservists experience the same basic training (boot camp) as regular, enlisted recruits. The first night of boot camp was one of the most traumatic experiences of my life. After a long day of signing paper work, invasive physical exams, and interminable waiting at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Station) somewhere in the Los Angeles region, I was bused with other recruits to San Diego. Upon arrival at the dead of night, a Drill Instructor (DI) boarded the bus and barked, “YOU ARE NOW AT THE UNITED STATES MARINE CORP RECRUIT DEPOT AT SAN DIEGO. THE FIRST AND LAST WORDS OUT OF YOUR MOUTH WILL BE SIR, YES, SIR. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!”

We instinctively yelled back, “Sir, Yes, Sir.” The DI then yelled at us to get off the bus and stand on yellow foot prints on the ground. A host of other DIs met us where we stood and yelled directly into our faces in rapid fire as we stood on the foot prints just before our hair being completely shaven from our heads. I think the fact that this took place during the late evening made this extremely disorienting. I did not sleep at all that night. I wanted to contact the lawyer I did not have to get me out of the there.

Whenever I get together with fellow Marines, we never fail to exchange endless boot camp stories. For non-Marines click on this link of the movie The Boys in Company C to get a small sense of the greeting Marine recruits receive at Parris Island or San Diego. Viewer discretion advised.

Con Safos

fpb

Not only in Berkeley or in East Los Angeles—also in Oxnard

2010-07-08T14:36:00.000-07:00

The LA Times printed today the informative column of Hector Tobar on the Chicano Moratorium protest march of August 29, 1970. The piece highlighted Rosalio Muñoz’s organization of the protest and the exhibition commemorating this historical event at the Mexican Cultural Institute next to Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles. Check it out. Both the column and exhibit.

Tobar concludes his essay by writing, “‘One tourist who went there recently told Muñoz: ‘I thought these things only happened in Berkeley.’ No ma'am, he answered. They also happened in East Los Angeles.”

So, anti-war protest occurred in many communities, one of them in the City of Oxnard. Twenty-two days later, on September 20, close to 1,000 Chicanos and Chicanas and their supporters also protested the Vietnam War by taking it to the streets. Organized by persons such as Ricardo Carmona, Roberto Flores, and other Brown Berets, the people of Chiques listened to the anti-war speeches of Muñoz, Blase Bonpane, Roberto Aliasa, and others.

Con safos

fpb

diary of a husky kid

2010-04-16T15:16:00.000-07:00

My boy had his first run in with a school yard bully recently. Which took me back to my days as a “husky” (read: chunky Chicano) kid. Before my first real run in with such a tormentor, I remember my old man showing me how to defend myself. I am not the smartest person, but I can take directions. “Put your fists just in front of your face, Frankie.” Ok? “No, look at me. Hands at temple height with your left leading your right. Get in this stance. Bend your knees and jab. Jab, jab, jab. Fast and hard. Like Ali and Mando Ramos.” So I did and practiced in the garage regularly.

Then the day came at Driffill Elementary when I was in the 4th grade. An even fatter, shorter, and mean (half Mexican-Japanese-American) Jimmy I. started picking on me in the hallway in front of girl classmates. Feebly, I said, “Stop it.” Emboldened by this weak protest, Jimmy I. was getting ready to attack. Without saying another word, I methodically staggered my stance, bent my knees (à la Bruce Lee), and raised my dukes just like dad showed me. Fat Jimmy I. rushed forward. Jab. Jimmy I., stunned, stepped back. Nose reddened and angered, he tried again. Jab. Jab, jab. I struck on target. Jimmy I. retreated looked at me, for a moment, and those around us and ran home crying.

I held my own. But I felt kind of bad since Jimmy I’s. mom was my Little League team mother. Well this is how I remember it.

Con Safos,

fpb

Americana Condiment

2010-04-09T08:24:00.000-07:00

The family ate at Doc Brown’s Chicken last week at Universal Studios and discovered that El Tapatio sauce is as iconic a condiment as ketchup and mustard. This is yet another sign that facets of Mexican culture (i.e., breakfast burritos, tortillas, pollo that’s loco) is redefining markers of Americana.

The issue of condiments also reminds me of how Eric, a Chicano-MEChista student of mine at Cypress College, once giggled and blushed when I mentioned the word condiments during a lecture.

Con Safos,

fpb

Sundown Towns

2010-04-02T16:58:00.000-07:00

An oral history interviewee last week indicated that at one time the City of Oxnard was a Sundown Town. To verify this phenomenon I asked another long time Oxnardian of Mexican descent about this and he indicated that he was not aware of such an ordinance. But he did express that by the actions of the Oxnard Police Department that, "we (Mexican Americans and Mexicans) knew that we did not have any business over there (i.e. the White residential area of the city)." When I shared this with my Osher class today at California State University Channel Islands, a student indicated that Burbank was such a city. James Loewen has a book titled Sundown Towns: A Hidden Dimension of American Racism. This book is next on my reading list.

Con Safos

fpb

Never say never because . . .

2010-02-20T07:17:00.000-08:00

I recall that when I was at Fresno State History Professor John W. Bohnstedt (a WWII refugee from Nazi Germany; his mother was Jewish) stated to the class that in history you avoid saying “‘never’ because ‘never’ is a long time.” In other words, change is constant. So when I read that both my retirement systems, Cal PERS and STRS, are underwater with regards to their long term sustainability, I remembered my professor as I once thought my financial golden years were never in jeopardy as a public employee.

But nothing is a sure thing in these current times when we have witnessed the overnight burning to ashes of the likes of corporate giants Lehman Brothers, GM, Toyota, and Tiger. Oh, well. I still got Social Security.

fpb

BTW: I loved the way Professor Bohnstedt pronounced my name with a German accent. Fronk

The Fifth Street Twilight Zone

2010-02-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

Last week I met with Dr. David Garcia about a joint research project on the history of the Oxnard School District and the practice of segregation. Being both educated in the city’s public schools, we shared stories growing up in Chiques and situated the school desegregation case of Soria v. Oxnard School District Board (1971) with that of Mendez v. Westminster (1946) and Brown v. Board of Education (1954).

I mentioned how when I was an adolescent, whether riding my Frankenstein bike or walking, I felt an unexplained unease when I ventured north of Fifth Street. Residents between C Street and Ventura Road and north of Fifth, during the 1970s, were solidly middle class and predominantly of European ethnic ancestry—Italian, German, Irish, French, etc—and Catholic. When I attended catechism classes at a craftsman style home on F Street, in what is now the city’s “historic” district, I was in awe and thought to myself, “I am in the house of rich people.” As I rode my bike home each week, I wondered how it was like to live in a spacious two story home like the ones in this neighborhood, instead of the south side one story two bedroom ticky-tacky residences in the blue collar Bartolo Square.

After meeting with David, I studied the 1974 Soria opinion of Judge Harry Pregerson of the 9th Circuit Court. In this document Pregerson cited Oxnard School Board minutes and stated:

To implement the "principle of segregation," the minutes for November 1936 to June 1939 show how Oxnard's School Board not only established and maintained segregated schools, but also established and maintained segregated classrooms within a school. Where segregated classrooms existed within a school, the Board had the additional problem of keeping children of different ethnic groups from playing together. In addressing this problem, the Board debated the feasibility of staggered playground periods and release times. Feasibility also dictated some exceptions to the Board's general principle of segregation. . . . . (Minutes for September 13, December 12, and December 21, 1938.)

Interesting. Then my eyes locked on to the computer screen as I read that in a 1937 board meeting Trustee J.H. Burfeind called for all “‘Mexican’ children living south of Fifth Street to attend the Haydock School, leaving all white and oriental children living south of Fifth Street in the Roosevelt and Wilson schools [in the north side of town]. The moving of Oriental children living south of Fifth Street to the Haydock School will be taken into consideration in case of future emergency, and no further shifting of pupils is intended.” The goal then was to carry out this crass segregation plan “with as little fuss as possible.”

Amazing. The apartheid-like feeling I internalized as a child crossing north of the Fifth Street twilight zone was not a figment of my imagination; it was de jure policy in the city of Oxnard. This is going to be a rich project. Stay tuned.

fpb

Continuity and Change

2010-02-08T15:01:00.000-08:00

A boyhood recollection consists of the fragrance of my grandpa’s hair brilliantined with Tres Flores (Three Flowers). When he was at work at the lemon packinghouse, I would open my grandparent’s medicine cabinet to take a whiff of the Tres Flores bottle or jar—similar to what I did with Vicks, regularly. The perfume was soothing and culturally linked in my memory with what I closely associated as an aspect of what it was to grow up Mexican. As I entered junior high school and flirted with being a cholo-molo wannabe, as a husky adolescent I straightened my curly-brown hair with Tres Flores as though it would make an impression with the cholitas. It didn’t. I envied the slim and slick boys with straight, jet-black coiffures.

As I have balded over time, I no longer have a reason to lubricate my hands and head with this oil or jell. In an effort to vicariously relive my youth and continue this tradition in toiletry, I purchased a small jar of Tres Flores for my son. He too found the scent captivating. But he has quickly forsaken this hair oil. As historians know, change is the only thing that is continuous. Among Latino youth, I have been told, it is no longer fashionable to grease one’s hair with the old Three Flowers. What is now “in” is not so suave, at least in name. The new popular hair jell is called moco de GORILA.

Go figure. Any lingering doubt of my being a middle-aged, nerdy dad is now gone.

fpb

That Smell

2010-02-06T08:30:00.000-08:00

Great Oxnard ambrosia this morning. A hybrid fragance of a dairy, garbage dump, chicken ranch, and burning trash. Mi tierra natal. I love it. Kind of like what Duval's Colonel Kilgore character stated in Apocalyse Now, ". . .that gasoline smell. . . It smelled like. . . . victory. Someday this war is gonna end.”

Old Gringo

2010-02-04T05:26:00.000-08:00

True story. I went to visit my old man a couple of weeks ago at his laundry mat in Chiques. I walked up to him wearing a cap before saying, “Hey, dad! How’s it going?” He responded with a bit of relief in his voice, “Oh, it’s you mijo. I was wondering as you were walking up, ‘what does this tall gringo want from me?’” Wow. I still don’t know what to make of this comment, from my dad even, as I don’t identify with being white, much less tall at 5'11 and shrinking. Well, this does contradict the view of Gustavo Arellano (the Mexican) who contends that, “. . . Mexicans don’t call gringos gringos. Only gringos call gringos gringos. Mexicans call gringos ‘gabachos.’” Then again my dad is a Mexican American and does often refer to Caucasians as both gabachos and gringos. So now I wonder (as a middle-aged man) if I should start viewing myself as an old gringo.

fpb

¿Quieres un taco?

2010-01-25T06:54:00.000-08:00

I grew up with the daily question, ¿Quieres un taco? (sentinels of the Spanish language, and of English for that matter, cut this pocho a little slack with the grammar and spelling as this is not my day job). Being a husky Chicano kid of the seventies, I cannot recall ever refusing this offer of mom, grandma, my tias, and the mothers of my pocho pals. But what warmed my hands between meals was what is now more popularly known as the burrito. But we (my family and generational friends) did not call them burritos. If my family was to eat tacos of the folded, fried—often flour—tortilla variety we knew the difference by when it was to be served. For example, when I asked mom, “What are we having for dinner?” And she replied, “Vamos a comer tacos.” I knew the difference. Hard-shell tacos were an occasion due to the fact that they were more labor intensive to make. Mom cooked hamburger meat, chopped lettuce, onions, and tomatoes, graded cheese and fried the folded over flour tortillas stuffed with meat. Everyday tacos consisted of a comal-heated tortilla clefed at each end, filled with beans and, for me, some jocoque.

Everyday tacos were also much easier to eat. The taco treat needed to be held with two hands and still crumbled onto your plate where the everyday taco could be put together dos por tres and eaten with one hand on your way out the door to school—walking or driving. A daily routine made much more cumbersome, if not dangerous, with the hard shell version.

In discussing the regional, hybrid, and transformational nature of culture in Southern California with students, I occasionally highlight this taco topic. I mention how field laborers warmed their tacos over a fire during breaks and how construction workers placed them in the hood of their cars wrapped in tinfoil to be kept warm by the engine. I have read Cesar Chavez mentioning similar examples to back me up on this and he, too, calling burritos, tacos. This would be totally impractical with a hard shell taco.

Despite this refutation to the burrito title of the taco, I have come to accept the demise of its double meaning. Not doing so would only make my life more complicated than it already is. I can only cherish the boyhood memory of the ever welcomed, and never ever refused, invitation, “¿Quieres un taco?”

fpb

Chicano food

2010-01-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

(Portrait of Manny in El Tepeyac)

There is a rumor floating around that El Tepeyac Café had been bought out and relocated to Chino. Today, when I asked if this was true, Manuel Rojas, owner of the Boyle Heights restaurant, stated that the story is completely false.

El Tepeyac (aka: Manny’s) is on Evergreen Avenue in East Los Angeles. In addition to the Manny special (a large plate-size burrito that if you could eat in one sitting used to earn you a free meal; an achievement of this writer in 1991 at the near cost of his digestive wellbeing), a signature dish is the Hollenbeck burrito monikered after the barrio’s LAPD division station. According to a 1986 LA Times report by George Ramos, the burrito’s name developed from the years of Eastside cops patronizing the establishment on their breaks.

For good food (and lots of it), a friendly atmosphere, and interesting Eastside stories from Manny go to El Tepeyac. BTW: When meeting up with San Ferndando Valley friends for breakfast, my favorite plate is the huevos rancheros.

fpb

Chicano Tortillas

2010-01-04T11:40:00.001-08:00

My household recently braved the making of homemade tortillas. This brought back memories of growing up blissfully eating grandma’s and my nina’s warm, aromatic, chewy, flour tortillas with butter and freshly fried beans. BTW: I was a husky (read fat) kid weighing 175lbs. in the 3rd grade. Even though my grandma taught her daughter (my nina) to make tortillas, they had a uniqueness all their own—kind of like beans. They used the same ingredients but they tasted different—equally delightful but different. Each used a metal pipe cured by the rolling out of thousands of tortillas. In trying to roll out a few this week end with a pocho wooden rolling pin, they came out close to being symmetrically round in shape. In the past, the more I tried to shape a semi-thin, circular tortilla like grandma’s the more it came out looking the like the contiguous United States.

When I was attending Moorpark College, I regularly stopped by my grandparents’ house to have lunch with freshly made tortillas. The comal heated their small kitchen and the toasted flour gave their home an embracing aroma. Although my grandma and grandpa are now deceased, their humble home still exist off a dirt road paralleling Walnut Canyon Road in Moorpark, against a hill blanketed with nopales, right by a drainage ditch. After transferring to Fresno State, I would visit them to practice my ever deteriorating capability to speak Spanish on my way back to Fresnal and take with me a stack of tortillas which I stashed away from my roommates. If I felt generous I would share them with my Mission Hills/San Fernando roommate, Dan. I will keep on trying to perfect my tortilla-making abilities as it will re-connect me to my ancestors. Making tortillas, I figure, will be much easier to master than trying to retrieve my capacity to speak a comprehensible Spanish. I hope to pass on this memory to my traviesos.

fpb

¡Ask a Mexican! ?

2009-11-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

On November 18, from 6-8pm, Gustavo Arellano will speak at California State University Channel Islands as part of the campus' Chicano/a Studies "Crossing Borders, Linking Communities" fall semester speakers series. For those outside of the Chicana/o and SoCal cultural loop, Arellano is a staff writer for the OC Weekly and author of the irreverent 2007 book ¡Ask a Mexican! and Orange County of 2008 and is one of a rising number of Mexican American cultural critics on the experience of Chicanas/os in Southern California and the nation. The talk will be in room 1360 of the Broome Library. Campus parking is $6.

For more on Arellano see: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/24/fashion/24mexican.html?pagewanted=all

fpb

CSU Channel Islands Chicana/o Studies Lecture Series

2009-09-24T09:56:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday California State University Channel Islands’ Chicana/o Studies program kicked off its fall 2009 Crossing Borders/Linking Communities lectures series. UC Davis Professor Lorena Oropeza, author of the acclaimed ¡Raza Si! ¡Guerra No!: Chicano Protest and Patriotism during the Vietnam War Era, spoke to the significance of Reies Lopez Tijerina to the Chicano Movement of late 1960s and 70s. In this regard, Professor Oropeza argued that Tijerina’s New Mexico land grant struggle positioned Chicanas and Chicanos within the historical narrative of the United States (up until then omitted) as well as complicated the nation’s notion of a black/white racial paradigm. A model, by the way, in which many Mexican Americans favored in identifying themselves as white; after all, that is where the rights and privileges of citizenship existed. Among other points made, Professor Oropeza posited an adroit definition of cultural nationalism in context to the era’s movements of civil rights and opposition to the Vietnam war. This being that cultural nationalism sought to instill a love of self in historically stigmatized populations such as people of African, Asian, and Mexican origins in the nation in order to promote unity that would ultimately translate into political power. This explanation is important when considering that academics have a tendency to bandy about concepts (such as cultural nationalism, post-structuralism, post-modernism, and other isms) without clearly explaining their own understanding of them.

The next presentation of this 3 part Chicana/o Studies lecture series will feature UC, Irvine History professor Dr. Anna Rosas on Wednesday, October 13th starting at 3pm. Professor Rosas will speak on the Bracero (Guest Worker) Program and its influences on families on both sides of the Mexico-US border. And in the following month, on November 18th, Gustavo Arellano, OC Weekly syndicated columnist and author of ¡Ask a Mexican! and Orange County: A Personal Narrative,will speak starting at 6pm. See the accompanying poster for details.

fpb

a reflection

2009-09-20T12:50:00.000-07:00

In my reading of movements influenced by literary expressions of politics and culture (that reconcile the past and present in the popular mind), the virtual complete silence of the Chicana and Chicano experience within the print media is deafening. Colleagues and friends within the world of Chicana/o Studies often lament how the mainstream press christens selected voices that will represent people of Mexican origins in the nation. To a significant degree they are correct in this criticism when considering that there exist a core group of academicians, journalists, and cultural workers who do not shy away from the monikers of Chicana and Chicano and unapologetically question prevailing understandings relating to achievement gaps in education, citizenship and residency, gender, and the shifting nature of capitalism. These commentaries are easily located within academe but scarcely outside of it. Perhaps what is needed is an accessible slick focusing on Chicana and Chicano perspectives. Of course, this requires sympathetic deep pocket sponsors in which there is a limited number with this interest—I suspect.

Alice McGrath in Amigos805.com

2009-06-19T08:45:00.000-07:00

Image: Frank P. Barajas and Alice McGrath at UCLA 2006

The following is an address given by one of Ventura County's treasures. Alice is a central character within Luis Valdez's play and movie Zoot Suit, which is based on true events of the past. Alice inspired me to write an essay within the academic journal Aztlan titled, "The Defense Committees of Sleepy Lagoon: A Convergent Struggle against Fascism, 1942-1944."

fpb

Amigos805.com
Address by Alice McGrath 2009 Commencement at Wooster College, Ohio

“I was born in Calgary Canada in 1917. My Jewish parents had fled Russia because their lives were threatened by religious persecution — the pogroms that threatened our lives. They took me and my two sisters to Los Angeles and that’s where I grew up and did some important work in my life.
Because of this I know the immigrants’ story which is the story of our country. I know that many of you have experienced this or have parents or grandparents who are here in our country because of similar circumstances.
Your story, our story is the story of this amazing country, which has its ying and yang, its positive and negative, its Jekyll and Hyde.
In later years as I was growing up I made common cause with others who were outsiders, who in reality are also the life blood of America….
This is our story. This is what makes our country unique….all comers are/ should be welcome as Ms. Liberty invites us to be here on these shores, one of the tired, masses yearning to breathe free.
Years later I became a dreamer of what our country should be about, liberty, justice, social equality for all ….. This was considered dangerous and later in my life during the McCarthy era our government through the FBI considered how I might be deported even though I was the daughter of naturalized citizens and had a right to be here like most of you sitting here today.I have a very thick FBI file. I am most proud that one of the comments is that I had “no known weaknesses.”
When I reached the age of conscience and consciousness, realized that not everyone was treated fairly, justly or equally in our country. We did not meet our higher ideals and expectations for justice. I knew that Racism and injustice were the greatest evils; holding us back from all we should and could be.
I felt a kinship and became a fighter for the marginalized: blacks, Latinos, Asians, women, ….
I worked to organize labor unions, to get a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work… What a concept!
I protested the against the incarceration of the Japanese in California after Pearl HarborAnd ….I was right… Not one Japanese resident of this country was ever convicted of treason…Later our Congress and even the Supreme Court of the United States had to recognize that we made a terrible mistake against the Japanese people including US Citizens born on US soil.
I ask you to remember that when our country is ready to question people of different ethnicity, religion or background…..please speak up for justice and our Constitution.
In 1944 I became the executive secretary of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense committee….22 young Mexican American men were wrongfully accused of murder. They were convicted in the press and in the court because of their ethnicity.
Alongside their attorneys, I fought the prejudice and ignorance which accused them of being born to be bad; sentiments fed by the racial prejudices of the day. After a long struggle in the courts, with the help of the public, they were released from prison….
This was one of my proudest and happiest days in my almost 93 years.
But I did not rest and went on to take 86 trips to Nicaragua during the contra war years bringing humanitarian relief and promoting a dialogue and understanding between the people of our countries.
I worked later on to organize the Ventura County Bar’s free legal services by volunteer attorneys to those without the means to get their day in court.
Oh yes, and I taught self defense to women and could flip many of you on your back, back in the day….
During my life, I have had the pleasure and honor of knowing intellectuals who shaped our country.
WEB Dubois, the author of the Souls of Black Folks, helped me understand that I had to pace myself. That my passion for social justice should not burn me out, that I should take time to enjoy what life has to offer and to know that tomorrow is another day to fight on. Please do the same…
I knew Carey McWilliams, an important fighter for civil rights for migrant workers and others; get to know who he is… We both knew that our country needed to put an end to racism which is a continuing scourge of our planet.
In 1944 he asked me to be the secretary of the Sleepy Lagoon Defense committee for those wrongfully accused young men. As a young woman without a college degree or relevant experience I said “I’ve never done anything like this before…Then he said the magic words.
NOW YOU WILL…
This is my message to you…. Now you will….you can live the kind of life I have. It isn’t all fun, but it is never boring and you can’t enjoy complacency.
Use your talents skills and energy and don’t be a bystander in your life and that of your era.
Never be silent in the face of things that matter. You will sleep better at night, no matter what the consequences; and you will make a difference. Our world needs you to step up to the plate, now more than ever.
My best wishes to you today and always….
Love,
Alice

Tex[x]-Mex

2009-06-16T05:52:00.000-07:00

In reviewing older posts on this blog, I was pleasantly surprised to see William A. Nericcio’s comment to my muse regarding “Old and New Mexicans.” Professor Nericco is a Professor of English at San Diego State in the Department of English and Comparative Literature and author of Tex[Mex]: Seductive Hallucinations of the Mexican in America (2007).

I was first introduced to Dr. Nericcio by way of KPFK’s 4 o’ clock report with Gustavo Arrellano, author of Ask a Mexican and Orange County: A Personal History. In twice randomly catching the intriguing insights of William on Gustavo’s show, I suspect he is a regular guest. To view Memo’s interesting blog visit Tex[t]-Mex.

fpb

Howard Bingham

2009-06-08T06:35:00.000-07:00

I went to the California African American Museum (CAAM) yesterday to see the “A Moment in Time: Bingham’s Black Panthers” photo exhibit—one image included Chicano Brown Berets and another Reies Tijerina. On my way out from the exhibit room I exchanged a kindly hello with a man and as we walked by my friend, Ross Fontes, said, “Hey, that’s him.” And it was—Howard Bingham. So we went back to meet him. In introducing myself I said, “Mr. Bingham. . .” and he replied, “I am Howard.” Howard has a new book out titled, Black Panthers 1968.

Bracero Project at CSUCI

2009-05-03T11:28:00.000-07:00

Last Monday, I attended the Bracero Project Town Hall meeting at Santa Paula High School in Ventura County. The event organized by CSU Channel Islands’ Centers for Community Engagement and Multicultural Engagement in conjunction with the university’s History and Chicana/o Studies programs reached out to the community to gather the contact information of people who worked under the US Bracero (Guest Worker) Program from 1942-1964. The event also sought the contact information of family members of Braceros and those who serviced them in housing, board, transportation and in other ways. The next step will be the conduct oral history interviews by CSUCI students.

Some times an image can sum up an experience quite well. See the following link for more information: http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_51_5.html

Robert F. Kennedy in La Colonia Oxnard

2009-02-13T19:55:00.000-08:00

Dear friend, life-long activist, and former Catholic nun, Lupe Anguiano recently gifted me a treasure in this photograph of Robert F. Kennedy in prayer at Cristo Rey Church in the La Colonia barrio of Oxnard three days before his 1968 assassination. Father Augustin Alvarez is in the background.

Other such historical jewels can be found in her archive at UCLA (http://www.chicano.ucla.edu/center/events/Anguiano.htm).

fpb

Chicana/o Food?

2009-01-05T05:28:00.000-08:00

If your are ever in Los Angeles or Orange County two restaurants to place on your itinerary to eat are El Tepeyac [a.k..a., Manny’s] in East Los Angeles and Super Mex in the city of Cypress. For a filling breakfast, the huevos rancheros plate at El Tepeyac (http://losangeles.citysearch.com/profile/59599 ) is outstanding and gets you powered for the day. For a hearty dinner, the #32 carne asada meal at Super Mex (http://www.supermex.com/ ) is heavenly. Your favorite company will make your dinning all the more pleasurable.

fpb

Tall Dark & Chicano

2008-12-27T14:54:00.000-08:00

There are people of Mexican origins who speak of Chicanas and Chicanos as though they have gone the way of dinosaurs—no longer around, if not extinct. For others, the image of Chicanas and Chicanos is frozen in the time of 1960s street protestors with raised fists. But as Chicanas and Chicanos still take to the streets when necessary, they have also infiltrated board rooms (political and, some, corporate I imagine), the faculty and administrations of academe, and other institutions. As I write, I am reminded of the ending of Luis Valdez’s Los Vendidos (The Sellouts) play in which Mexican characters representing stereotypes map out the infiltration of Chicanos throughout the nation, even Rumford, Maine.

The label of Chicana/Chicano is well alive. Last night I enjoyed George Lopez’s Tall Dark & Chicano show. Lopez stood before yet another sold out show at the 7,000 seat Nokia Theatre L.A. Live. It was very funny as well as affirming of the syncretic culture that is Chicana/o. Similar to previous tours, Lopez’s comedic stories contrasted his late baby boom upbringing in the San Fernando Valley with that of today’s adolescents. Toward the end of the show, Lopez repeatedly implored audience members in their mid-twenties and thirties to savor their youth. His admonition reminded me of George Bernard Shaw’s adage, “Youth is wasted on the young.” (I thought it was Mark Twain but a quick Google tells me otherwise).

Unlike his 2005 show at the Universal Gibson Amphitheatre, Lopez was also more political in that he took jabs at the outgoing W and the Terminator. He also condemned the creation of a wall along the US-Mexico border. He compared the creation of a nativist inspired wall like putting on a condom after having sex since some 45 million Latinos already live in the US. He also characterized the social-political present as “our time.” Lopez meant that a cultural-demographic shift was presently taking place. As I listened, I thought of a host of issues that our society needs to address in this regard, mainly having to do with education.

fpb

Seasons Creatings: Carey McWilliams

2008-12-24T15:36:00.001-08:00

As a fanatic of Peter Richardson’s “Stray Thoughts on California Culture” blog, I have been intrigued, but not surprised, by the promotion of Carey McWilliams’ books by Gustavo Arellano and D.J. Waldie. McWilliams influenced the careers of many writers and academics, as Peter has said—particularly those in Chicana/o Studies. Brown University historian Matt Garcia (and Claremont Graduate School classmate), for example, wrote his dissertation and first book on the Padua Players of Claremont. McWilliams first wrote on the Padua Institute that sponsored the Players within North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States (1948). In fact, the title of Matt’s 2001 book (A World of Its Own) is taken from McWilliams’ discussion of the Southern California citrus belt within Southern California: An Island on the Land (1946). I also suspect that McWilliams’ “The Forty Blonde Babies” within North From Mexico inspired Linda Gordon to write The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (1999). In my own work, I have tentatively titled my manuscript A Curious Union in reference to McWilliams’ observation within North From Mexico regarding how unique it was for sugar refining magnates to partner with family owned farms to advance the growing of sugar beets in the West. This, in fact, was one “curious union” among many that took place in the Southern California coastal city of Oxnard which my manuscript centers. First, the city was founded by the New York Oxnard brothers who owned the American Beet Sugar Company and recruited local landowners to grow sugar beets. Second, the Oxnard Plain was a site where Japanese and Mexican betabeleros (sugar beet workers) and labor contractors curiously united in 1903 to combat a fifty percent wage cut at the hands of the Western Agricultural Contracting Company. And third, many cross-cultural alliances developed in relation to leisure, labor, and community during the first-half of the twentieth century, one involving Cesar Chavez. Hence, I find it fitting that the concept of “curious unions” be the thesis of my book. Will see.

To further ground my obra within the existing body of scholarly literature on the region, I have been studying Kevin Starr’s magisterial Material Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s. Today I read on the importance of the Automobile Club of Southern California in relation to its publication of Touring Topics beginning in 1909 and renamed in 1934 Westways. Starr states that Touring Topics was “a serious, well-edited journal of travel, history, cultural commentary, and informed promotionalism. Touring Topics was the Overland Monthly, the Atlantic Monthly even of Southern California. . . .” And low and behold, as a 24 year member of the Automobile Club I found in my mail this very day the Special Centennial Edition of Westways. Within in it, Kevin Starr writes a tribute to Carey McWilliams as McWilliams authored a monthly column for the Automobile Clup magazine titled “Tides West” from 1934 to 1939. In this piece, Starr credits McWilliams as “the finest nonfiction writer California has ever produced, and the leading interpreter of the state up to the mid-20th century.” I am left wondering, however, who Starr recognizes as the leading interpreter of the region since the 1950s, especially with McWilliams varied credentials as a journalist, historian, civil rights activist, and cultural critic. None come readily to mind, as Peter Richardson has pondered.

In closing, there is no one book of Carey McWilliams that I would suggest for you to purchase. They are all great, so just pick one depending on your current interest and need. But I am confident in saying that you will mostly likely find three books within arms reach of many scholars of Chicana/o history and they are: Kate L. Turabian’s A Manual for Writers, depending on her or his baptismal year into Chicana/o Studies an edition of Rudy Acuña’s Occupied America, and McWilliams’ North from Mexico.

Happy holidays,
fpb

The Alinsky Connection

2008-11-02T04:46:00.000-08:00

It has been some time since my last post. But here is an essay that was printed today in the Ventura County Star. A dear friend in Texas also emailed me stating that the San Benito News also published this essay. Peter Richardson provided feedback on earlier drafts of this piece. Thanks Queta and Peter.

fpb

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/nov/02/the-alinsky-chavez-obama-connection/?printer=1/

The Alinsky, Chavez, Obama connection
Sunday, November 2, 2008

If recent polling holds true, a former community organizer from Chicago will be America's next president. Barack Obama's success thus far has been largely attributed to his efficient grass-roots voter-registration campaign and pensive eloquence. Meanwhile, detractors like Fox News and author Jerome Corsi have sought to discredit Obama by linking him to Saul Alinsky.

Before John McCain, Corsi, on Fox's "Hannity and Colmes," accused the Obama campaign of seeking to redistribute wealth and creating a "cult of personality" similar to that of Cesar Chavez "borrowed directly from the organization of the farm workers going back four decades."

According to Corsi, Obama must be feared for his promotion of economic justice and empowering the near powerless — two core principles of Alinsky.

Cesar Chavez I know, but who is Saul Alinsky? I asked the same question 10 years ago after attending a Teatro Campesino production in Orange County. The theater company was inspired by Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s, and after the show, UFW activists led a series of call-and-response cheers: "Que viva Cesar Chavez! Que viva! Que viva Dolores Huerta! Que viva!"

Paeans to other Chicano icons followed. Then came a less-familiar blast: "Que viva Saul Alinsky!" The crowd roared its answer, but I was stumped. Alinsky wasn't a surname I had heard during my Chicano upbringing. Saul, yes. But not Alinsky! As a history professor at Cypress College, I was too embarrassed to ask anyone in the crowd that day.

Later, I learned that Alinsky founded the Chicago-based Industrial Areas Foundation, which sent battle-tested organizers to train and develop local leaders on issues related to voting, discrimination and police brutality. In his classic treatise, "Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals," Alinsky showed how working-class blacks and white ethnics could work together to end employer discrimination and municipal neglect.

For example, to influence elites holding power to make concessions, "Rules for Radicals" proposed the tactic of threatening to have community activists purchase 100 seats for a symphony performance in Rochester, N.Y. Beforehand, the attendees would enjoy bowls of baked beans with subsequent "obvious consequences" as they sat in their concert seats.

To persuade an upscale department store to change its discriminatory hiring practices, Alinsky suggested that protesters order all items in sight, have them shipped C.O.D., and then refuse delivery later. These two tactics signaled that long-standing privileges would be threatened if a community withheld basic rights from its most disadvantaged residents.

One of Alinsky's disciples, Fred Ross, founded Community Service Organization chapters throughout California after World War II. In Los Angeles, the CSO worked with Chicano activists to promote English and citizenship classes, voter-registration drives, and get-out-the vote campaigns. To aid Edward R. Roybal's election to the Los Angeles City Council in 1949, the CSO registered 12,000 new voters. Roybal became the first Mexican-American to sit on the City Council since the 1880s, and he later represented Los Angeles in Congress for 30 years.

One of Ross' protégés was Cesar Chavez. Like his mentor, Chavez traveled the state developing CSO chapters and leaders. After asking community members to invite neighbors, co-workers and family to a house meeting, Chavez listened to their problems and organized them to demand redresses to their grievances. His success led Alinsky and Ralph Helstein, president of the United Packinghouse Workers of America, to summon Ross and Chavez to San Francisco in 1958 to discuss the creation of a CSO chapter in Ventura County. Helstein believed that a CSO there could buttress the UPWA's efforts to combat the citrus industry's exploitation of bracero guest workers.

Impact on Ventura County
So, with a hefty budget worth about $144,000 now, Chavez listened to community complaints in house meetings, tapped into the energies of activists and assisted Mexican residents with their everyday problems. From a long series of house and community meetings, the Ventura County CSO increased enrollments in English language classes, guided longtime Mexican residents through the naturalization process and registered citizens for the 1958 election. On Election Day, CSO organizers worked tirelessly to get out the vote. In the Oxnard barrio community of La Colonia, turnout was an impressive 82 percent. The CSO had convinced residents that showing up to the polls could bring about social change.

Months later, Chavez would use the apparatus of the 1958 election to organize Ventura County domestic farm workers to combat the Goliath-like might of the agricultural industry. Indeed, short-lived successes in this struggle inspired Chavez to leave the CSO a few years later to start his own national farmer workers union in Delano. It was here that Chavez used the strategy of organizing one true believer, one household, one community at a time to bring about hope for the future.

So, in the midst of an economic recession in 1958, disciples of Alinsky used his rules of radicalism to empower men, women and children to believe in themselves.

And today Obama's ground game of true believers is getting out the vote in highly contested states such as Florida, Missouri and Ohio. Similar to the diligent work of Chicago's Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council and California's CSO, the Obama campaign has inspired a new generation of citizens to participate actively in our democracy and this is good, no matter what Fox News and Corsi would want you to believe. Que viva Saul Alinsky!

— Frank P. Barajas is an associate professor of history at California State University Channel Islands. Barajas is writing a book on labor and community in Ventura County titled, "A Curious Union: Activism and Community to the Rise of Cesar Chavez."

©2008 Ventura County Star

Beijing Olympic Freestyle Champion: Henry Cejudo

2008-08-19T20:14:00.000-07:00

Twenty-one year old Henry Cejudo won the gold medal in the 55-kilogram (121 lbs) weight class today against Japan's Tomohiro Matsunaga.

Congratulations, Henry!

The Petro Bandito

2008-08-19T07:18:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, a reader of my blog gifted me the latest copy of The Milken Institute Review: A Journal of Economic Policy, not necessarily for the article (one of several) within it by Laurence Kerr titled, “Whither Mexico?” but to share with me yet another stereotype depicting Mexicans trapped in the early twentieth century. The cover of this issue of TMIR imagines a Mexican bandit (He could be a revolutionario. Who knows? They are the same to many) panoplied with bandoliers, a gruff countenance, PEMEX safety helmet substituting for a sombrero, and instead of holding a 30/30 carabina this oil vandal passively holds a gas nozzle, all the while sitting on top of a dreary looking caballo.

I realize that many publications, even serious ones like the TMIR, find it necessary to caricature subjects on their covers to catch the attention of readers but it is interesting how entrenched stereotypes are updated, and in the process reinforce popular views of groups. Instead of the Frito Bandito we have today in the TMIR’s cover the petro bandito. Past covers of the TMIR similarly fantasize stereotypical depictions of national symbols (like Uncle Sam being a jocular, elder Anglo Saxon), groups, and a number of eroticized women (http://www.milkeninstitute.org/publications/publications.taf?function=list&cat=mir ).

The problem with stereotypes, however, is that they drastically limit how we view reality, and ultimately how we act as a result. I wonder how many PEMEX executives, or company employees for that matter, of today actually ride around oil fields, calculate profits, or distribute gasoline atop of horses, complete with 30/30 ammo?

BTW: Kerr, a former minister-counselor for economic affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, writes a succinct, yet insightful, economic critique of the policies of Mexican presidential administrations since the 1930s. I am left to wonder what stereotypes of Kerr and his peer group floats within the minds of the people at TMIR?

fpb

A New Program in Chicana/o Studies

2008-07-23T08:06:00.000-07:00

With the start of the fall 2008 semester approaching, California State University Channel Islands will inaugurate its Chicana/o Studies: Transborder Communities BA degree (http://www.csuci.edu/academics/catalog/2008-2009/15_programsanddegrees/08_chicanoastudies.htm ). To assist in leading the implementation of this new and innovative program in Chicana/o Studies, CSUCI successfully recruited Associate Professor José M. Alamillo from Washington State University. Professor Alamillo is the author of the well received book "Making Lemonade Out of Lemons, Mexican American Labor and Leisure in a California Town, 1880-1960." The core argument of this groundbreaking study contends that Mexican men and women in the lemon industry company town of Corona (in Riverside County) tapped into the inner-workings of leisure sites for organized political action.

The son of parents who labored in the packinghouses and citrus orchards of Ventura County, Professor Alamillo is returning home. He is also the product of the University of California at Santa Barbara’s Education Opportunity Program (EOP). His participation in the programming of EOP began when he was in middle school as it implemented strategies to capture the imagination of K-12 students historically underserved and underrepresented in academe. After earning a BA degree in Sociology and Communication Studies, Professor Alamillo went onto the University of California at Irvine to obtain his doctorate in Comparative Cultures.

For the fall semester, Professor Alamillo will teach courses in Chicana/o History and Culture, Chicanas/os in Contemporary Society, and Chicana/o Studies Service Learning and Civic engagement. The service learning course will focus on capturing the oral histories of people who directly participated in or who were associated with the Bracero Program. These oral testimonies will then be contributed to the Smithsonian Museum of American History to be apart of its permanent collection in Washington, D.C.

fpb

Old and New Mexicans

2008-07-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

On the way to the Santa Monica Promenade and pier yesterday, I drove by a Malibu restaurant with a giant statute of a supposed Mexican stoically serving food. What meanings exist behind such images that market food? Paradoxically, icons advertizing for two Mexican food restaurants in Southern California portray Mexican men as gargantuan and “super” while being frozen in time and indolent.

Although many stereotypes continue to define Mexicans and Chicanas/os, my muse is grounded in the memory of the Frito Bandito commercials of the late 1960s and ‘70s. (Frito Bandito Song) Should these updated stereotypes be a concern?

fpb

Crossing the Line

2008-04-23T06:39:00.001-07:00

“Frankie, vete a la tienda y compra (go to the store and buy) . . . . . “Un carton de leche” (a half-gallon carton of milk), sour cream, unas papas (potatoes), “a pound of carne molida, extra lean” (hamburger). Vivid in my memory is the day I crossed the United Farm Workers’ union picket line boycotting a South Oxnard market in the early 1970s. I must have been 10 years old. As I approached a crowd, made larger in their holding intrepid red and white flags with a defiant black eagle at the center, I was struck by the drama of activism by a people, my people, that I never witnessed demonstrate in such a way. I did not want to enter the small neighborhood market for I felt, almost instinctively, sympathetic to their protest; at the same time I feared the wrath of mom for not fulfilling “mi mandado” (my errand). As I gazed at the brown faces of the picketers I considered “grandpa” and “grandma”, long time citizens, one by birth the other naturalized, on dad’s side and abuelita (grandmother) on my mother’s who picked and packed lemons, lettuce, plums, and other crops throughout California for much of the 20th century. Nonetheless I crossed the line.

Although I never picked a fruit or vegetable for a living, as a Chicano born and raised in Ventura County I lived in a cross-cultural community of agricultural workers. I remember visiting the homes of Filipino, Japanese, and Mexican families and viewing mud-caked trucks and boots in the driveway of homes. My family regularly received bounties of delicious strawberries, lemons, and celery gratis from our friends and neighbors; what could not be consumed we redistributed. The exchange of free produce strengthened communal bonds. I also eavesdropped on adult conversations sharing the experiences of work in the packing sheds and canneries, peppered with the word la union (the union).

While in graduate school I interviewed my grandmothers about their lives. They recounted the challenges they faced as women, workers, and mothers. Grandma talked about the freedom employment at the Oxnard Seaboard packinghouse afforded her in regards to escaping the isolated confines of the home; grandpa allowed her to work after my aunts and uncles left the nest. Mi abuelita explained how she migrated to the US as a 45 year old single mother while toeing three young daughters from Chihuahua, Mexico. A family friend, married to a Filipino, assisted my abuelita’s entrance into the land of sun and money—more sun than money. Although mi abuelita never returned to Chihuahua she referred to it as mi tierra natal (my homeland), along with the heroics of Pancho Villa. Both grandma and abuelita also spoke of la union.

Grandma related the family’s eviction from Rancho Sespe during the countywide citrus strike of 1941. Pickers and packers of the Agricultural and Citrus Workers Union (ACWU) desired union recognition, a ten cent raise in hourly pay from 30 to 40 cents (adjusted for inflation translating to $5.75), and compensation for la hora mojada or wet time—the idle morning period crews spent in the orchards waiting for fruit to dry before its harvest. Being that grandpa was a union organizer, the Barajas family, like many other families who for generations lived in the company housing of Rancho Sespe, suddenly found themselves homeless. Fortunately, Franklin Roosevelt’s Farm Security Administration established tent cities (nicknamed Teaguevilles after the Limoneira owner Charles Teague) for displaced citrus workers. Meanwhile, los missourees, Dust Bowl migrants, took over their homes and jobs. In this story, ACWU leader “Pedro” Pete Petersen’s name is in an important figure in this family’s story of labor activism.

Abuelita’s historical deposition, on the other hand, expressed the sense of empowerment Cesar Chavez instilled in her. In fact, abuelita also became a UFW organizer while working on a Japanese owned farm. With tears in her eyes, her daughter expressed the sense of humiliation when growers required strawberry pickers to constantly blow whistles to prevent them from eating the fruit as they worked. At one point, abuelita fired back at an overseer at one ranch in stating that she was a human being, not an animal. When I spoke to abuelita about Cesar Chavez she spoke of him with the same reverence as when she talked about Pancho Villa—a person who championed the cause of the underdog.

The history of farm workers struggling for dignity in the form of a living wage and humane working condition is long and highlighted by UFW campaigns in the Southwest. And although the five year long farm worker strike in Delano dominates the state’s memory, lesser known rebellions took place throughout the state. Indeed, in 1974 the UFW launched a 4 month long strike against the strawberry growers of Ventura County. The collusion of local public agencies with agribusiness evidenced itself when sheriff’s department helicopters attempted to disperse UFW picket lines by hovering directly above protestors; in fact, one drifted so low a UFW protester retaliated by hurling rocks at it. This, however, only afforded law enforcement the pretext they needed to aggressively arrest him and others who came to his defense. Protest has a price.

As I drive by the fields of the Oxnard Plain on my way to work every day, I muse upon the challenges of men and women who labor in them today and ask myself: Do their families enjoy improved opportunities than those of my grandparents? Do they earn a living wage? Are they adequately protected from the effects of pesticides? Can they form a union without the terror of being fired or deported? I do not know the answer to some of these questions; but I am sure of one thing. If a UFW picket line forms at my grocery store I will not cross the line. I will join it.

fpb

(Chicana/o) History Matters

2008-03-14T06:02:00.000-07:00

On the evening of March 11, R.F. Acuña lectured on his new book Corridors of Migration: The Odyssey of Mexican Laborers, 1600-1933. A timely monograph in relation to the current debate on immigration from Mexico, the argument of Corridors attests that since the 17th century Mexicans existed within a tierra natal (homeland), if you will, in the current US Southwest. Indeed, migrant Mexican families from Chihuahua and Sonora in northern Mexico hop scotched from one industrial region to another, and in the process recreated tierra natals in places such as Los Angeles and Arvin in the San Joaquin Valley and monikered their adopted communities Chihuahuitas after the state from which they came. In short, R.F. Acuña historically demonstrated that Mexicans of the past and present are anything but uninvited, immigrant aliens. In fact, their current presence is part of long tradition of labor recruitment and migration in what is today the United States.

As part of his W.P. Whitsett lecture at CSU Northridge, R.F. Acuña began his talk by crediting Carey McWilliams—the prodigious and prescient author of many books, one being North From Mexico: The Spanish-Speaking People of the United States—and his longtime CSU Northridge colleague historian Leonard Pitt—author of the California history classic Decline of the California’s: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890—for modeling the intrinsic force of cogent writing. And during an academic craze for cultural studies and all that is post-modern, R.F. Acuña emphasized the historian’s importance in creating new narratives on the foundation of extant primary evidence. In this regard, he stated that he never read an endnote he didn’t love.

In the process of his story telling, R.F. Acuña integrated descriptions of his methodology, humor (that expressed an affinity for British historians with their catchy abbreviated names such as E.P. Thompson, E.J. Hobsbawm, and A.J.P. Taylor), and answering questions from a captivated audience of 100.

fpb

Salud Carbajal is No Santa Barbara Fantasy

2008-03-13T05:03:00.000-07:00

Oxnard’s adopted native son, Salud Carbajal, will have an easy time in his reelection to the prodigiously affluent 1st District seat of the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors. The Santa Barbara Independent attributed Carbajal’s talent to politically fund raise over $395,000 by the January filling period coupled with an affable disposition as central reasons in staving off a challenge to his seat.

BTW: Salud is an Oxnard High School alum of the class of 1983 and my compadre. His determination to attend the University of California at Santa Barbara out of high school inspired many of his classmates (me included) to enroll in college preparatory courses in the ultimate pursuit of baccalaureate degrees. This is particularly significant when one considers that over 50% of our peers dropped out of school, some as early as the ninth grade.

fpb

Smithsonian Institution Bracero History Project Town Hall

2008-03-03T06:13:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday evening, on March 26, approximately 150 persons answered the call of the Smithsonian Institution, in partnership with California State University Channel Islands, to participate in the Bracero History Project that seeks to preserve the memories and artifacts of former braceros who worked the farm factories of the United States from 1942 to 1964. Indeed, daughters, sons, and grandchildren accompanied braceros to Oxnard’s cultural center of Chicana/o art and community, the Café on A, to document their narratives to the nation’s history. In all, forty braceros volunteered their names to CSUCI students to participate in this important oral history project.

The stories of former braceros, and those who lived and worked with them, are of particular significance today as national leaders of the United States and Mexico reference the Bracero Program as a template to formulate a comprehensive immigration reform policy. The shortcomings of the Bracero Program of the past must be given special attention, however, as to protect the interests of workers and their families on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Documented by Ernesto Galarza as early as the late 1940s and Cesar Chavez the following decade, endemic problems with the Bracero Program entailed braceros working under the continuous threat of deportation if they complained about working conditions, the depression of the existing wage rate of resident agricultural workers, and collusion between state and federal agencies with agricultural associations in the subsidized acquisition and control of braceros. In fact, Carey McWilliams characterized the government’s transfer of the supervision of the Bracero Program from the diligent Farm Security Administration to the War Food Administration in 1943 as “tantamount to turning the whole program over to the farm associations.” Furthermore, the industry's leaders steadily employed braceros in an expanding array of jobs displacing resident workers.

The Smithsonian Institution’s Bracero History Project, in partnership with students throughout the nation like those at California State University Channel Islands, will surely promote a more complete appreciation of this labor program.

For interesting images visit: http://americanhistory.si.edu/onthemove/themes/story_51_5.html

The one above is titled: Bracero workers being fumigated (with DDT)

fpb

Op.Ed. Ventura County Star

2008-01-20T11:14:00.000-08:00

I received a holiday card this year with a special surprise from Sylvia Mendez. It was a U.S. Postal Service stamp commemorating the precedent-setting Mendez et al. v. Westminster School District of Orange County et al. (1946). As a graduate student in the early 1990s, I had the privilege of interviewing Sylvia and her mother, Felicitas, in their Fullerton home. Felicitas and her husband, Gonzalo, were the lead plaintiffs in a suit challenging their children's segregation in "Mexican schools."

The case demonstrated that systematic discrimination in the United States was not limited to African-Americans in the South but also targeted blacks, Asian Americans and Chicanos throughout the Southwest.

The Mendez decision held that separate-but-equal practices violated the constitutional rights of Chicano schoolchildren. Thurgood Marshall, lawyer for the NAACP and future U.S. Supreme Court justice, filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Mendez plaintiffs. The following year, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the decision, but school boards throughout the state resisted desegregation remedies for decades.

In 1954, when Marshall successfully challenged the separate-but-equal doctrine as it applied to African-American children in the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education, he cited the Mendez ruling.

Studying the Mendez case led me to wonder about historically high dropout rates among Chicanos. Over the years, I've asked Chicano parents, grandparents and great-grandparents throughout Ventura County about their schooling. The elders I spoke with described Mexican schools in Ventura, Santa Paula and Fillmore that were both separate from, and unequal to, those attended by white children.

And where budgets precluded the creation of Mexican schools, districts established segregated spaces within the schools. At the Woodrow Wilson School in Oxnard, for example, officials physically separated students of African, Asian and Mexican ancestry from their white peers, both in the classrooms and the playground. One person I interviewed said that Chicano children often relieved themselves behind trees because the nearest restroom was on the side of the playground designated for white students.

The same senior citizens also recalled the corporal punishment meted out to children who spoke Spanish at school. One Fullerton College counselor lamented the tight-lipped confusion he and his classmates endured. Unable to answer his teachers in English, and prohibited from speaking Spanish, he mostly remained silent while attending a Mexican school in Orange County. Chicano students who survived elementary and middle school were often tracked away from college preparatory courses and toward vocational and home economic classes.

Alienated and marginalized, 50 percent of Chicano youths dropped out — some contend they were pushed out — and then had to overcome educational handicaps to compete in the job market.

Southern California school districts weren't always quick to implement school desegregation. Before the Mendez and Brown decisions, Oxnard built neighborhood elementary schools (Juanita and Ramona) yards away from each other to prevent Chicano children of La Colonia from venturing outside their barrio for their education. In 1974, almost three decades after Mendez, U.S. District Court Judge Harry Pregerson used, in Debbie and Doreen Soria et al., Plaintiffs, v. Oxnard School District Board of Trustees, school board minutes from 1934 to show the "explicit intent to racially segregate its elementary school students." He ordered the Oxnard School District to implement a desegregation plan.

Desegregation was usually slow when it came at all, and recent studies show that American communities — and schools — are resegregating rapidly. The Mendez case reminds us that the problems of social equity now facing our children may be complex, but they're not wholly unprecedented. Income based on the education that persons received in previous generations now plays a large role in determining what neighborhoods their progeny live and where they send or do not send their children to school. This is the new face of segregation. If there is one thing that history reminds us it is that the struggle for social justice continues. Thank you for the stamp, Sylvia Mendez.

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2008/jan/20/new-face-of-segregation/

fpb

An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in A Southern California Chicana/o Community

2008-01-08T09:23:00.000-08:00

During my six years of probationary status as an assistant professor at California State University Channel Islands, I learned that self promotion is an important attribute in advancing one’s career in academe. With this in mind, I announce that my latest peer-reviewed journal publication in Latino Studies is now out. The essay explores the dramatic institution of a civil gang injunction in the city of Oxnard. To obtain a free copy visit:

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/journal/v5/n4/index.html

fpb

Dolores Huerta at Oxnard College

2007-11-29T06:12:00.000-08:00

Yesterday Dolores Huerta, co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, spoke at Oxnard College. In her presentation, Dolores Huerta spoke of the early achievements of the UFW in fighting for the provision of drinking water and sanitation facilities in the fields that workers labored, eliminating the use of the backbreaking short-handle hoe, improving the overall working environment for farm workers, and securing union contracts with agricultural employers.

In carrying on the legacy of the Community Service Organization that trained Cesar Chavez, Dolores Huerta, and many others, the Dolores Huerta Foundation trains and hires community organizers to carry on the struggle for social justice. Throughout her talk, Dolores Huerta urged the audience of college and high school students, faculty, staff, and administrators to become active in their communities to struggle for positive social change near and far.

Here is the URL to the local newspaper report on the event: http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2007/nov/29/power-is-in-us-labor-leader-says-in-oxnard-talk/

Smithsonian Institution Advisory Board member Vicki L. Ruiz

2007-11-01T06:09:00.000-07:00

University of California at Irvine professor of History and interim Dean of the Humanities, Vick L. Ruiz (http://www.humanities.uci.edu/history/faculty/ruiz/) has been elected to the Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Institution. Among the Smithsonian’s many initiatives, Professor Ruiz seeks to promote the Bracero History Project, in consortium with George Mason University, the Institute of Oral History at the University of Texas at El Paso, and the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America at Brown University.

Indeed, during the spring of 2008 students, faculty, and staff at California State University Channel Islands will be conducting workshops and collecting oral histories to contribute to the Bracero History Project. A traveling exhibit is an aspect of the Bracero History Project to further document, exhibit, and share the multifaceted history the
Bracero Program. In April of 2008, CSUCI will incorporate the study of Bracero Program into its week-long celebration of the life of Cesar Chavez. (http://www.csuci.edu/news/releases/Events_Planned_to_Celebrate_Legacy_of_CÃ©sar_ChÃ¡vez.htm)

Currently, I am documenting the history of Cesar Chavez’s organizing as director of the Community Service Organization in Ventura County from 1958 to late 1959. During this time Cesar Chavez and the Chicana/o community of Ventura County fought the displacement of domestic workers by the agricultural industry’s ever increasing use of braceros. Indeed, this struggle and momentary victory inspired Cesar Chavez to resign from the CSO to create the United Farm Workers Union in Delano, California.

fpb

Chicana/o Studies Tenure-Track Opening at California State University Channel Islands

2007-10-14T09:12:00.000-07:00

Tenure-Track Chicana/o Studies Recruitment
California State University Channel Islands
Open Date: 10/7/07
Review Begins: 11/2/07
Open until filled

Position Description / Responsibilities : CSUCI seeks applicants at the Assistant, Associate or Full Professor level to implement the Bachelor of Arts program in Chicana/o Studies, scheduled to open in the fall of 2008. Associate/Full Professor Required Qualifications: A Ph.D., Ed.D., or MFA in an academic home discipline in education, the arts, social sciences or humanities with expertise in Chicana/o Studies, Latina/o Studies, and/or Transborder Studies; administrative experience and curriculum and program development experience; a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; a record of scholarly achievement; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments on an off campus. Associate/Full Professor Preferred Qualifications: Spanish language fluency; experience with experiential and service learning pedagogies. Assistant Professor Required Qualifications: A Ph.D., Ed.D., or MFA in an academic home discipline in education, the arts, social sciences or humanities with expertise in Chicana/o Studies, Latina/o Studies, and/or Transborder Studies; demonstrate the potential to create a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; detail a scholarly agenda to achieve tenure and promotion; demonstrate the capacity to assume administrative, curriculum, and programmatic responsibilities appropriate to this rank; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments. Preferred Qualifications: Spanish proficiency; willingness to adopt experiential and service learning pedagogies.

Minimum Degree Requirements: Ph.D., Ed.D., or MFA in an academic home discipline in education, the arts, social sciences or humanities with expertise in Chicana/o Studies, Latina/o Studies, and/or Transborder Studies.

Required Qualifications: Associate/Full Professor Required Qualifications: Administrative experience and curriculum and program development experience; a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; a record of scholarly achievement; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments on an off campus.

Preferred Qualifications: Associate/Full Professor Preferred Qualifications: Spanish language fluency; experience with experiential and service learning pedagogies. Evidence of commitment and ability to work in teams. Assistant Professor Required Qualifications: Spanish proficiency; willingness to adopt experiential and service learning pedagogies.Assistant Professor Required Qualifications: Demonstrate the potential to create a record of effective teaching with a variety of methodologies and theoretical approaches; detail a scholarly agenda to achieve tenure and promotion; demonstrate the capacity to assume administrative, curriculum, and programmatic responsibilities appropriate to this rank; and experience with and commitment to working in multiethnic, multilingual, and multicultural environments.

For details visit: https://www.csucifacultyjobs.com/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1192194411370

Ventura County Farm Worker History

2007-10-09T00:28:00.000-07:00

Manuel Unzueta presented a lecture on Saturday, October 6th, at the Rancho Sespe community center in the city of Fillmore, California. Unzueta spoke on the origins of farm worker corridos that emerged out of a joint project in the 1970s consisting of University of California at Santa Barbara academics and the Casa de la Raza. In promoting the Unzueta lecture, Ventura County activist Moses Mora detailed that, “some (then) young local Chicano academics put forth a call to farmworkers from Santa Maria to Ventura County to submit poetry and songs about their lives. They were overwhelmed with the response and got the Library of Congress in documenting this history.” A book was also published. Titles within the Alma Chicana de Aztlan cd are: El Corrido del Chicano/Mexicano, El Corrido del Rancho Sespe, La Sobrina, Corrido del Chino Valdez, La Despedida al Rancho Sespe, El Mojado, Yo Soy Mexicano Señores, Tanto Tienes, Tanto Vales, Corrido del Campesino and Corrido a Damian García. These songs document the experiences of struggle and perseverance among farm workers.

Before the lecture Aztec dancers performed before guest and residents of the Rancho Sespe farm worker housing community of the Cabrillo Economic Development Corporation. Moses Mora, Dr. Gabino Aguirre, and Manuela Aparicio-Twitchell are currently organizing Manuel Unzueta speaking engagements in Santa Paula, Oxnard, and, possibly, at California State University Channel Islands.
fpb

C.V.

2007-10-01T12:29:00.000-07:00

Frank P. Barajas, Associate Professor
California State University Channel Islands
One University Drive
Camarillo, CA 93012
805.437.8862
frank.barajas@csuci.edu

February 5, 2010

EDUCATION:

1983-85 AA, Moorpark College
Moorpark, California

1985-88 BA History, California State University, Fresno
Fresno, California

1988-1991 MA History, California State University, Fresno
Fresno, California

1993-2001 PhD History Claremont Graduate University
Claremont, California

PUBLICATIONS:

“An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in a Southern California Chicana/o Community.” Latino Studies 5 no. 4 (Winter 2007): 393-417.

“The Defense Committees of Sleepy Lagoon: A Convergent Struggle against Fascism, 1942-1944.” Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies 31 no. 1 (Spring 2006): 33-62.

“Resistance, Radicalism, and Repression on the Oxnard Plain: The Social Context of the Betabelero Strike of 1933.” Western Historical Quarterly XXXV no. 1 (Spring 2004): 27-51.

PROJECT IN PROGRESS:

Book manuscript. Curious Unions: Chicana/o Resistance up to the Rise of Cesar Chavez, 1890-1959.

BOOK REVIEWS:

Chicano Studies: The Genesis of a Discipline. By Michael Soldatenko. (Tucson, The University of Arizona Press, 2009) for the Pacific Historical Review. Invited, submitted, and to be published.

North for the Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry. By Jim Norris. (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2009) for the Journal of American History. March 2010 issue.

Power of the Zoot: Youth Culture and Resistance during World War II. By Luis Alvarez. (University of California Press, 2008) for the Western Historical Quarterly Autumn 2009: 382.

Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 by Richard Steven Street. (Stanford University Press, 2004) for the Western Historical Quarterly Autumn 2005: 377-378.

TEACHING

2007-Present Associate Professor

2001-2006 Tenure-track Assistant Professor at California State University Channel
Islands
Courses:

HIST 270 The United States to 1877
HIST 280 The Historian’s Craft
ENG/HIST 334 Narratives of Southern California
HIST 350 Chicano History and Culture
HIST 369 California History and Culture
HIST 402 Southern California Chicana/o History and Culture
HIST 499 Capstone in History

1992-2001 Tenured at Cypress College.

Ken Burns: Defend the Honor AND Take Back Your History Press Conference and Tribute

2007-09-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, September 23, approximately 150 people attended the Defend The Honor Campaign AND Take Back Your History demonstration/press conference in front of the KCET Studios in Los Angeles protesting Ken Burns’ The War documentary on World War II. Chicano/Latino veterans, students, professors, and activists expressed criticism of Burns omitting the stories of sacrifice and valor of Chicano/Latino veterans from his initial production of the documentary and then splicing an addendum of footage of Chicano/Latino veterans into the project only after intense pressure from communities throughout the United States.

Within the demonstration were counter-demonstrators defending PBS (the Public Broadcasting Service) contending that Ken Burns is not a racist, arguing for “one nation” and “one language,” “stop bullying PBS,” and, particularly a white pick-up truck patrolling the protest area with US Marine messages on its bed while blaring nationalist songs from an outboard speaker system. The counter-demonstrators seem to have confused the demand for the integration of the WWII experience of Chicano/Latino veterans into the documentary as unpatriotic.

The Larry Amaya Greater Los Angeles chapter of the American G.I. Forum informed participants of the contributions of Chicano/Latino veterans. One story recounted US Army General Douglas MacArthur’s demand, “Send me more Mexicans,” upon returning to the Philippines. Apparently, the courageous fighting of Chicanos made an impression on the general. Community activist, educator, and historical figure of the 1968 East Los Angeles student walkouts, Sal Castro detailed to reporters Burns’ pattern of excluding the experiences of Chicano/Latinos in his documentaries—most blatantly those having to do with baseball and the latest on WWII.

Signs protesting Burns’ The War documentary expressed: “WE ARE NOT AN ‘AFTER THOUGHT’!”; “PBS LIES!”; “KEN BURNS IS RACIST”; “REMEMBER THE BORINQUENEER PUERTO RICO”; “ABAJO CON BURNS”; “DON’T ERASE OUR HISTORY”; “TELL US KIDS THE TRUTH; and “WE ARE AMERICANS TOO!!!”

Demonstrations to Ken Burns’ historical erasure of 500,000 Chicana/o/Latino WWII veterans were held across the United States in Austin, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities. Central to the organizing of these events were Sal Castro, Jorge Garcia, David Sandoval, Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, and Rudy Acuña.
fpb

Acuña Art Gallery Reception "One Love: Arte Visions from the Four Corners of the World" Exhibit

2007-09-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I attended the One Love: Arte Visions from the Four Corners of the World reception for the international exhibit of: Paul Dilworth (England), Christine Leong (Hong Kong), Elan Cohen (Bali), the Cusco School (Cusco, Peru), and the Orchids of the World (Zuma Canyon Orchids, Malibu). Proprietors Dr. Deborah De Vries and Armando Vazquez of the Acuña Art Gallery @ Café on A continue to culturally nourish the Southern California region with art that captivates the soul while challenging the intellect of all who encounter the paintings, sculptures, and arrangements in the building.

In addition to providing a magnet venue of artistic expression, Dr. De Vries and Mr. Vazquez co-direct the Keys Leadership Academy for at-risk youth. I often state to people that the Café on A is the cultural conscious of Ventura County, particularly when issues adversely affect the Chicana/o community.

If the work that the two perform from the Café were not enough, Dr. De Vries is a professor at Oxnard College and a school board member of the Oxnard School District; Mr. Vazquez is an artist who is at the moment is writing a novel based on his 35 years of work with at-risk young Chicanas.

civil gang injunction essay

2007-09-12T17:20:00.000-07:00

I received notice today that the peer-reviewed journal Latino Studies accepted for publication my essay on the institution of a civil gang injunction in the City of Oxnard in 2004. The piece is titled, “An Invading Army: A Civil Gang Injunction in a Southern California Chicana/o Community” and is scheduled to appear in the December 2007, volume 5, issue 4 edition of the journal.

Latino Studies has been named Runner up in the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ) Awards for Scholarly Achievement - Best New Journal category...”

Labor (and Community) Day

2007-08-31T12:05:00.000-07:00

As Labor Day is celebrated, we should take pause to recognize the rich history of community building via labor struggle. Ventura County provides inspiring examples of people coming closer together as they demanded fair wages and improved working conditions. On the Oxnard Plain, for example, two bitter strikes took place involving sugar beet farm laborers (betabeleros, as they would be called) during the early decades of the twentieth century. In resisting a 50% wage cut in the thinning of sugar beets, Japanese and Mexican betabeleros united in forming the Japanese Mexican Labor Association in February of 1903. After a month-long struggle and a dramatic downtown shot-out resulting in five wounded and one fatality, growers agreed to revert to the pre-strike wage rate. The JMLA strike of 1903 is particularly significant in the history of the United States as it serves as a brilliant and unique example of intercultural labor solidarity.

During the Great Depression’s nadir, in August of 1933 Oxnard betabeleros and the Cannery Agricultural Worker Industrial Union again resisted the curtailing of the wage scale, this time by 12%. Although ultimately unsuccessful, the 1933 betabelero strike demonstrated the strength and openness of the Mexican community in drawing upon similar intercultural support from the Filipino Protective League, Ella Winter (wife of the renowned muckraking journalist Lincoln Steffens) and the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners, and Al Wirrin of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Prior to the nation’s entrance into WWII, a county-wide citrus strike arose. Similar to the demands of the previous two disputes, workers in lemon and orange orchards and packinghouses demanded union recognition, improved working conditions, and a 12% raise in wages. Simultaneously, families of the citrus industry in Rancho Sespe, Somis, and other communities banded together in creating life sustaining cultural events and fundraisers. Those who found themselves displaced from citrus company housing also assembled surrogate government councils within a federal Farm Security Administration camp in Oxnard of the likes detailed in John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. As in 1933, this strike to increase the wages of workers ended in failure. The effort for economic justice, however, presaged the Post-WWII demands for equal treatment under the law. This strike, in particular, continues to live in the cultural memory of Ventura County residents as an inspiring saga of labor and community solidarity.

Recognizing the tradition of community and labor activism in Ventura County, during the fall of 1958 the Community Service Organization sent a person named Cesar Chavez to create a chapter to establish citizenship courses, voter registration drives, and non-partisan get out the vote campaigns within the La Colonia barrio of Oxnard. Moreover, CSO members throughout the county came to challenge the exploitive use of bracero agricultural laborers (federally subsidized Mexican guest workers). Cesar Chavez’s experiences as a CSO organizer, being once himself a betabelero in Ventura County, and an intermittent resident introduced him to the degrading situations that workers in fields encountered; this included but was not limited to the absence of restrooms, drinking water, the backbreaking use of the infamous el cortito (the short-handle hoe), and wages insufficient to support a family. Indeed, the CSO’s successful leveraging of Ventura County’s community assets for the betterment of labor answered a question that he held: Could an effective farm workers union be created to address these issues? The answer was Si Se Puede (yes it can be done)!

So as many of us may have the privilege of enjoying this three day holiday weekend, we must commemorate the importance of community in protecting and advancing the interests of labor everywhere.
fpb

Peter Richardson Presentation

2007-08-25T14:25:00.000-07:00

On September 27th at 10:30-11:45 at California State University Channel Islands, Carey McWilliams biographer Peter Richardson will present a lecture titled, “American Prophet: The Civic Engagement and Public Scholarship of Carey McWilliams.” The event will be held in Malibu Hall 100 and is open to the public. For free parking take the Vista Bus to the university from the Metrolink Station in Camarillo. All day campus parking permits cost $6.