EL MALCRIADO
Beto Rocha
I was a cut and paste man [a type setter] working for
Cesar ChavezÕ bi-monthly newspaper titled ÒEl MalcriadoÓ.
The workplace was a small building situated within the
com- pound of the headquarters of the United Farmworkers Union in La Paz, California, which is located
slightly north and east of Delano at the foot of the Tehachapi Mountains. I
volunteered to work part time during the summer months, which I did for about
two years in the early 70s.
I met Cesar Chavez, who is one of my
heroÕs. He was a great man, and I still burn with extreme dislike of a farm
owner, when I remember what I was told that he had said of Cesar, and called
him a Ôdirty little MexicanÕ. I guess that ignorant man doesnÕt know his own
history, in that, Europeans didnÕt bathe during those times when they first
invaded Turtle Island, and those who could afford it hid their stench with
perfume. The native peoples of this land washed daily in the un polluted
rivers, streams and lakes of Turtle Island, and steamed their bodies in sweat
lodges.
C.D.A., an
artist associate of mine, introduced me into the world of the FarmworkerÕs
Union. In those days TV newscasts showing the farmworkers on strike was daily
fare, and I kept myself informed to all the events: the strike, the marches,
the speeches that Cesar gave, and to the police repression by the sheriffs and
the State Police backing the ranchers that the farmworkers endured. I recall
that Ronald Reagan, the then governor of California, assisted the grape growers
in having grapes shipped to the U.S. Armed Forces fighting to loot the
Vietnamese of their rubber, zinc and oil, while we were boycot- ting the sale
of grapes on the home front.
[27.]
Working for about two months or less each summer, I
pasted
up lines of typewritten material with hot wax onto
large news-
paper size sheets, and once the entire publication was
put toge- ther, my group, consisting of three or more L.A. Chicano city
artists, got into a van or the old white Dodge, and transported the almost
completed edition of the paper, and took it to a printing factory in Long
Beach, California.
Once, when on our way to La Paz, we were
fueling up the old Dodge at a gas station, we all wore Chicano garb, I, in
particu- lar was wearing a red or blue paisley bandana, for headgear, and at
that time, I wore bell bottom blue jeans, much in fashion, and a tight fitting
chamarra de mesclilla. In front of us and to the right a, bunch of white
youngsters got out of a new, shiny bright auto, which was also being gassed up,
and they began to jeer & and insult us. I was about to retaliate, but
C.D.A. grabbed my arm, and stopped me from yelling back. It was as though for the first time in
my life, I had observed within myself, a vague yet physical understanding of
having discretion, an abstract word to me at that time, which in concrete terms
means Ôto be coolÕ. ÒA quick tempered man commits rash acts, the prudent man
will be long sufferingÓ. Proverbs 14:17. ÒTo a man of discretion, wisdom means
a watch on his own conductÓ . . . Proverbs 14:8. ÒThe equable man is full of
discernment, the hasty is more than foolish.Ó Proverbs 14:29.
Upon returning to L.A. in a panel truck [it might have
been MaguÕs] from La Paz, and as we rode along we saw people working in the
fields, and on seeing this, we all commented on the feeling of pride we felt of
being advocates and doing our part for the farmworkers and their union. One
winter, our group was called on by the staff of El Malcriado to help put out
[28.]
a special edition. Some Mexicanos, and an Arab
farmworker
had been murdered by contrincantes of the strike, they
had
been killed on the picket line. But this time, owing to
circumstances, I set out by myself in a little old 58 ÔbeetleÕ, which had been
designed and manufactured by the Nazis before WWII, so my ÔchiripupuÕ, [a bunch
of little kids in Mazatlan Mexico, never having seen a VW in their lives,
danced around the VW, singing the name I had given the latest rendition of the
ÔbugÕ I owned] even though it hadnÕt been in the war, was battle weary. It had
been made in Stuttgart Germany 15 or so years ago. Its ragtop was torn and
flapped in the wind, and the auto had no heater. Nevertheless I took the back
route through the Mohave Desert crossing the Tehachapi Mountains to La Paz. It
was a mighty cold winter that year, and the desert was covered with snow, and
bitter cold. I suppose I would have frozen to death should the beetle have
broken down, but I made it through O.K. and reached La Paz in the dead of
night. I found a place to sleep in the old Olive View tuberculosis hospital,
and crashed on the bare floor, & slept in an ancient, threadbare sleeping
bag IÕd lugged along. Waking at mid-morning, and after breakfast I headed
toward the small building which housed the Malcriado bi-monthly, and went to
work.
At some point during that winter session,
the editor, whose name I donÕt remember, and with good reason, got all the people
to stop what they were doing, and held a meeting asking everyone to
participate, and to criticize or otherwise give their opinion about the product
they had embarked on. When it came my turn, throwing discretion and diplomacy
to the wind, I spoke my mind saying all that I had stored up in regard to the
literary content contained within each edition of El Malcriado I had worked on.
I said that for me it was an excruciating experi-
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ence reading the newspaper, in that I had to struggle
and force my concentration in order to stay focused on what I was read-
ing. I said, that what was written was extremely dull,
and unimaginative. Where was the excitement, the color; descrip- tion of the
actors, and of the environment within which all these enormous historical
events were taking place? And who were the writers anyway? On ending my
critical diatribe, I was met by stone cold silence.
I by nature am a loner, and I must have
appeared aloof and distant from my co-workers. So I had little or no
interaction with those outside of my own small group of artists. I worked,
perhaps, some few days longer, but on getting out of the sack the last morning
of my voluntary employment at El Malcriado, I found that I was sick with the
flu. Nevertheless I must have crawled my way to the workplace, and as I vividly
recall, for in my mind I have an image, like an out of the body experience, of
seeing myself sitting, bedraggled, on a large rock beside the door of the
building, the editor pushing open the door, striding over to where I was, and
saying loudly to me, ÒYouÕre fired.Ó It had never occurred to me to find out
who my co-workers were. I thought they were the persons who merely typed out
the material given to them, who passed it on to us the paste up workers, and
never did it occur to me until long afterwards that the people doing the
typing, including the editor, were the actual writers of the colorless stuff
they were putting out.
So,
that ended my adventure as a farmworker news paper man. I dragged my self to
the old carrucha, took the Tehachapi Mountain road east in my beat up Bug till
I hit the highway going south through the Mohavi Desert, reaching Pasadena
& finally my home destination of Lincoln Heights in North East L.A. Tun
Tun!
[30.]