At Berkeley in the Sixties: The Making of an Activist

14 Mexico and Central America

Berkeley fair housing ordinance and on Proposition 14 one could see the seeds of future racial con®ict. Proposition 14 presaged a white backlash even while the frontal assault on white privilege in the North was just beginning. 14 Mexico and Central America A lot of SLATE activity took place during the summer, when the organization held an annual conference where activists often met with students from other campuses to share experiences. Because I missed these conferences I was not plugged into the national network that student activists were building in the early sixties. I spent the summer of 1962 in Washington, D.C., earning money and the summer of 1963 in Mexico and Central America spending it. Since my only expense while working in Washington was transportation and entertainment, I accumulated a small nest egg and used it to indulge in a summer program in Guadalajara , Mexico, sponsored by the University of Arizona. I hoped that immersion in a Spanish-speaking environment would teach to me to speak the language I had studied formally for four years. I didn’t learn Spanish as well as I had hoped, but I learned a lot of other things. On June 25th, Helen drove to Tijuana and put me on a bus for Guadalajara. I took the front seat opposite the driver, thinking only of the great view from the front window. But two days in a seat where I could not stretch my legs wreaked havoc with my knees. I learned not to do that again. For six weeks I lived with three other girls from the States in the home of a Mexican family, rode the bus to school and around the city, and took numerous side trips. The family we stayed with was relatively prosperous—Dr. Carlos Valle was a physician—residing in a large Mexico and Central America l 73 and lovely house, so I was always puzzled about why they took in paying guests. Although Sra. Valle was not employed, she had two live-in maids to do the cooking and cleaning. This was new to me. I knew no one in the United States who had one maid, let alone two. They lived in a small room off the kitchen. I tried to talk to them, but they wouldn’t tell me much about their lives or what they earned, or perhaps my Spanish wasn’t pro¤cient enough. What impressed me most about Mexico was the abysmal poverty I saw all around. This too was new. I thought I had seen poverty in my trips to Alabama, in some places around Los Angeles, and even in Tijuana , a growing city right across the Mexican border. But I hadn’t; I had just seen poor people. Being poor is a relative condition, and not strictly an economic one. One is poor compared to the others around you; you can eat well and sleep warmly and be poor. One can be poor in many ways; you can be rich in material things and still have poor health or lack family or friends or peace of mind. Poverty is an absolute lack of the minimal necessities for a decent life. Once I saw the pervasive poverty of Mexico I understood the braceros who came to California to work in the ¤elds for low wages. As bad as it was, it was better than what they had at home. I also better understood why U.S. labor unions opposed these workers; the standard of living that American workers were trying to escape from was what Mexican workers aspired to. Mexican goods were cheap because labor was so cheap. In Mexico I also learned to see the United States not as America the Beautiful but as El Coloso del Norte—the Colossus of the North, the 800pound gorilla who could sit where it pleased without regard for others. I wrote Helen long letters describing what I saw and the people I met. Guadalajara was a charming city whose virtues I appreciated more when I visited Mexico City with another girl after school ended. We stayed in a pensión (small, dorm-like hotel) for students on Callé Ignacio Mariscal and spent our days walking and riding all over la Ciudád. After a few days, she said it was time to go home to L.A. I had about $50 left and at least three weeks before Cal classes started. I didn’t want to go home. Percolating in my...