The String Cheese Incident can drop a cover of Dolly Parton’s “Those Memories of You” that dribbles into the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s “Lonesome Fiddle Blues,” and then slips into a spacey jam that segues into Peter Rowan’s “Panama Red.” That’s not a hypothetical—it’s from an actual set the group unleashed a couple of months ago.
Michael Kang (acoustic/electric mandolin, electric guitar, violin), Michael Travis (drums), Bill Nershi (guitar, lap steel), Kyle Hollingsworth (keys), Jason Hann (percussion) and Keith Moseley (bass) have learned how to employ their improvisational skills in more ways than one. Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh was supposed to join String Cheese for a set of Dead tunes at the renowned Red Rocks Amphitheatre last July, but Lesh caught Covid. Within a 24-hour-period, the band secured phenom Billy Strings. Though they had never performed with the badass guitarist, they went ahead with the same Dead set that concluded with “Estimated Prophet,” “Eyes of the World,” “The Other One” and “Shakedown Street,” each song bleeding into the next.
“We’ve been so lucky to share the stage with dozens, if not hundreds, of our friends, mentors and idols,” Keith Moseley tells me before heading into his Colorado studio; String Cheese plans to release a new studio record sometime in 2023. “That spirit of collaboration is super exciting for us, and has been part of what we’ve always looked to—that common language of music with friends helps us dig deeper into the experience by sharing the stage with these other players.”
Every SCI fan knows that no shows are alike. Ever. In the vein of the Dead, they can perform five, six or seven nights straight without repeating songs.
“Every show has a lot of possibilities in terms of the dynamics and energy,” Moseley says. “When those improv moments show up, it’s [important] to be open, attuned to the vibe of the crowd, the energy in the room and the [energy] of the band members.”
Other than the Grateful Dead and Phish, SCI is really the only other example of a jam-oriented band who has been at it consistently for multiple decades with pretty much the same lineup.
“We’ve been fortunate to be able to keep it together,” Moseley says. “It’s taken a lot of hard work and a shared focus. I think our diversity hinders us, but, in some ways, it helps us and helps keep the music interesting and fresh. A lot of it is about trying not to control what happens, and being accepting with an open mind, open heart and being part of the creation. Certainly, the energy from the crowd is a part of that. There’s more potential to create some magic, and that’s what we’re going for.”
Everybody in the band is a songwriter, and everyone contributes. The operation runs like a well-oiled democracy: everyone gets a chance to bring in and play their own songs. Like any relationship, there’s some give and take, and a lot of compromises, but these guys truly nurture each other’s strengths and avoid focusing on weaknesses.
The group’s endurance can also be attributed to the outdoor Colorado mountain lifestyle most members lead. when they’re not making music, they’re skiing, hiking and mountain biking. Hell, they started the band to perform in exchange for ski passes. Now they’re at a point where they don’t have to live on the road, performing 200 shows or more per year.
“No one has suffered from addiction or terrible health issues, and a lot of that is because of lifestyle focus,” Moseley explains. “We’re able to have time off to spend with our families. That also keeps us hungry to come back and play more and more. All those things have enabled us to keep going.”
It’s been 20 years since String Cheese last performed in Santa Cruz County—they played at UCSC, Palookaville and the Catalyst multiple times. Also, their multi-instrumental mandolinist Michael Yang lives in the area, and drummer Michael Travis is a UCSC alum.
“Santa Cruz has always been close to the heart of what we do,” Moseley says. “It’s going to be fun to get back.”
SCI headlines Mountain Sol Saturday and Sunday (4:30pm). Saturday features Santa Cruz alt-bluegrass trio the Devil Makes Three (2:45pm), Americana rocker Jackie Greene (1:15pm) and prog soul quintet Object Heavy (noon). Sunday includes Melvin Seals and John Kadlecik leading the Grateful Dead-flavored Terrapin Family Band (3pm), reggae roots outfit KATCHAFIRE (1:30pm) and late great guitarist Neal Casal’s brainchild Circles Around the Sun (noon). Local favorite Matt Hartle and Friends will be jamming throughout both days.
The Santa Cruz Mountain Sol Festival is Saturday, Sept. 17 and Sunday, Sept. 18, 11am-9pm at Roaring Camp, 5401 Graham Hill Road, Felton. $115/single day ($60/kids 10-17); $225/ weekend ($115/kids); kids 2-9 are free with a ticketed adult. For RV camping, shuttle and parking, visit santacruzmountainsol.com.
Can a satirical anti-romantic comedy written over 100 years ago—and not by a man named Shakespeare—have anything to say to us today? It can if the play is Arms and the Man, and the playwright the acerbic Nobel Laureate George Bernard Shaw. Jewel Theatre has made this daring choice for its highly entertaining season opener.
Few theater-goers aren’t familiar with the wicked wit of Shaw, the man whose Pygmalion gave us My Fair Lady. Nothing and no one is safe from his juicy pen—love, war, men, women, the military, the bourgeoisie, even the Swiss.
The jewelbox production is beautifully mounted on a shallow stage which moves the action, the crisp dialogue, and the gorgeous costuming close to the audience.
Set in the late 19th century during a war raging between Serbia and Bulgaria, Shaw’s satire about the glorification of love and war begins in the bedroom of Raina Petroff (Elinor Gunn), daughter of a wealthy Bulgarian family. Raina is engaged to marry a military officer involved in what they all believe is a heroic battle against the enemy. All the pomp, pretense and disastrous ideology of soldiering are ripe for skewering by Shaw’s brisk lines, which retain surprising energy in the hands of director Nike Doukas’ skillful cast.
Raina and her mother Catherine (Marcia Pizzo) are delirious with joy over news from the front, sent by the father of the house, that Raina’s fiance, Sergius, has led a great victory. He is the “hero of the hour, the idol of the regiment.” The play opens in Raina’s luxurious bedroom—beautifully captured by Se Hyun Oh’s scenic design and Wen Ling Liao’s lighting—where Raina has just climbed into bed when an intruder suddenly bursts into the bedroom through an unlocked window. A battleweary Serb soldier (actually a Swiss mercenary fighting for the Serbs) needs a place to hide while he rests. In the ensuing wordplay, Raina extolls the virtues of her gallant Sergius, while the intruder (Charles Pasternak in full Errol Flynn mode) tells quite a different story, revealing that the Serbs “triumphed” only by luck, since their Bulgarian opponents had no ammunition.
Seeing how tired and hungry he is, Raina gives the starving soldier some of her chocolate creams, and when he has to be hustled out of the house to avoid capture, the romantic girl puts her photograph with the inscription “to my chocolate cream soldier” into the pocket of his jacket.
Thanks to the Jewel’s crisp production, the play’s subtext emerges nicely—the tension between women’s intelligent perceptions and the cooing, subservient roles they adopt in order to maintain their position in society. This tension plays out in the next scenes with the maid Louka (Allie Pratt), who knows her own worth even though she’s a peasant, and Raina’s realization about the privileged role she’s played all her life. “Perhaps we only had our heroic ideas because we are so fond of reading Byron and Pushkin,” Shaw has her admit.
The pace picks up when the men, father Petkoff (Bo Foxworth), and the magnificently costumed toy soldier Sergius (Kyle T. Hester) arrive home from the battlefield. A blissful Raina basks in the glow of her sweetheart’s uniform, his handsome looks, his peacock attitude. The comedy gets richer as Shaw unleashes delicious jokes about pretentious Bulgarians and their hygiene. Civilized versus barbarian behavior is raked over the Shavian coals—and given the current Ukraine situation, the dialogue still hits its target. During the second half of the play, Louka, the pert serving girl, and Nicola (Andrew Davids), the wise servant who knows his place, become Shaw’s mouthpieces for the working class, who see through the posturing dramatics of their social superiors. Some of Shaw’s political messaging about the dignity of workers gets muddled in the rapid-fire exchanges between Pratt and Hester, but in the end, all the points are clearly made.
Arms and the Man looks fantastic, with outstanding period details from furniture to gowns (kudos to B. Modern). And the adroit cast keeps the witty repartee moving, with special praise for Hester as the hysterically pompous Major Sergius, Marcia Pizzo and Bo Foxworth as the fussy, nouveau riche Petkoffs and most resoundingly to “chocolate cream soldier” Charles Pasternak, who walks off with the last fifteen minutes of the production.
The Jewel Theatre season opener is ripping good entertainment, loaded with wit and blustery character epiphanies. You know exactly what will happen, and you’ll enjoy it all the same.‘Arms and the Man’ by George Bernard Shaw, a Jewel Theatre production, will be performed at the Colligan Theater on the Tannery campus, 1010 River St. in Santa Cruz, through Oct. 2. jeweltheatre.net.
I am a local resident and walk the Cowell and Boardwalk beaches every morning. There is an increasing number of dogs on the beaches. This morning, I witnessed an off-leash doodle harassing and nipping at an injured bird who had come on to shore to pass. The dog owner could not get the dog away from the bird by demand, and was chasing the dog while it continued to yelp and nip at the bird—who was in quite a flutter, yet helpless. Please dog owners, comply with the no-dogs-allowed city ordinance. Have compassion for the birds, seals, dolphins and other creatures who regularly wash up or come onto shore to pass in peace. The beach is their natural habitat and they have the right to die peacefully without harassment or fear. Thank you.
Nisa Moore
Santa Cruz
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Re: “Zone Defense” (GT, 9/7): The tactics employed by special interest groups to thwart the City of Santa Cruz’s adoption of objective housing standards are appalling. I am particularly troubled by the threatened misuse of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to delay the process. This is a textbook example of why the state is becoming more prescriptive and requiring local jurisdictions to ministerially approve certain types of developments (e.g., ADUs, higher-density housing). Ministerial actions are exempt from CEQA.
I have practiced environmental and land use law for decades, and have witnessed the erosion of public support for important environmental laws like CEQA. It is particularly discouraging to see people like Gary Patton, who spent decades championing CEQA and other environmental laws, using CEQA to preserve their own personal utopia. Higher-density housing for all income groups is critical to solving the housing shortage. And 100% affordable projects do not pencil out without significant public funding. The areas identified by the city are near transit, which will reduce vehicle miles traveled and associated greenhouse gas emissions. This hypocritical entitlement mentality needs to stop.
Lizanne Reynolds
Aptos
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This has been the summer of bracero here at GT. I’m not sure that we’d ever run a story mentioning the Bracero Program before this year (though it’s certainly possible that we did before my time), and then in June it came up in my cover story about Dave Alvin and Jimmie Dale Gilmore, who recorded a version of Woody Guthrie’s protest anthem “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos).” Incensed that the national media did not name the migrant workers who were killed in a 1948 plane crash—some of whom were being returned to Mexico after their bracero contracts expired—Guthrie channeled his anger into a poem that later became a song which has been covered by everyone from Bob Dylan and Joan Baez to Bruce Springsteen to Billy Bragg.
Now, in this week’s cover story, Adam Joseph goes in-depth about the Bracero Program. The starting point is an event at the MAH this week looking at its history, but his piece gets much deeper, into the opportunities that the program offered to immigrant workers, and also its abuses. Thanks to a trove of probably never-seen-before images discovered by Ignacio Ornelas at a Stanford library—like the one on our cover this week, and others used throughout the story—we also get a very humanizing look at the braceros who were part of the program. The role they played in building this area’s agricultural industry is a history just beginning to be told.
STEVE PALOPOLI | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
ONLINE COMMENTS
Re: WATSONVILLE ARTS SCENE
Excellent news! As the piece explains, Watsonville is filled with creative, energetic folks, and they deserve the support. The arts are integral to a richer, deeper life, and should be accessible.
— Tom Bentley
RE: DUKE KAHANAMOKU
That was a super read. I’ll bet the Duke remained noble even though he was under pressure from travel and performance schedules.
— Sean Hennessey
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER
BURST THINGS FIRST Fireworks at the Watsonville Airport Open House over Labor Day weekend. Photo by Maria Choy.
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GOOD IDEA
DO THE FANDANGO
Mexican Independence Day is right around the corner, and Watsonville will be celebrating with its first ever Fandango en La Plaza, a free community event. A fandango is a cultural tradition that brings together dancers and musicians for one big celebration, and this event will be no exception. There will be live dancing, music performances from Southern Mexico and an outdoor screening of the award-winning documentary film Fandango at the Wall on Friday, Sept. 16 at the Watsonville Plaza.
GOOD WORK
COOKING FOR A DECADE
The kids are alright, and the Teen Kitchen Project (TKP) is proof of it. The nonprofit is celebrating 10 years of bringing young people into the kitchen to cook healthy meals for Santa Cruz County residents living with critical and chronic illness. TKP has over 1,000 local youth ages 14-18 preparing nourishing meals adapted for medical diagnoses. Over the years, TKP has delivered 370,000 meals straight to the doorsteps of the clients who are in medical crisis. Learn more about TKP at teenkitchenproject.org.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world.”
Stanford’s Cecil H. Green Library exudes an Ivy League elegance. Art-deco pendulum chandeliers hang from vaulted ceilings, casting spotlights. Lacquered wood-paneled bookcases line the perimeter of the great room, which is so large that it never seems like anyone else is there but you. The guarded space is home to a plethora of rare documents, books and archives, which those who have permission can carefully sift through in the “special collections reading room.”
The silence is only broken when the clocktower sounds, resonating throughout the cavernous building with little impact on the few researchers, educators and archivists permitted to hunt through treasure troves of academic relics. Eight years ago, Ignacio “Nacho” Ornelas was granted that privileged access when he began working in the archives at the Stanford library. It was a perfect opportunity since he had already started documenting oral histories of braceros in the Monterey Bay region for his dissertation, “The Struggle for Social Justice in the Monterey Bay Area, 1930-2000.”
Ornelas delved deep into the archives, researching papers and documents that Ernesto Galarza had left for the university. Galarza, born in Jalcocotán, Nayarit, Mexico, in 1905, immigrated to California with his family after the Mexican Revolution. He was an activist who Ornelas calls “Cesar Chavez before Cesar Chavez.”
Ornelas stumbled upon an array of photographs and unprinted negatives scattered loosely throughout Galarza’s documents, letters and notebooks. Galarza himself didn’t take them; he had commissioned a photographer—who remains anonymous—to document the abuses in the Bracero Program, of which he was a vocal critic.
The Bracero Program was an agreement the U.S. made with Mexico that offered temporary work visas to Mexican citizens between 1942 and 1964. Galarza’s 1964 book, Merchants of Labor,documented accounts of abuses within the program, and contributed to its eventual demise.
But even before that, Galarza had advocated for years to end the program, and thought photographic evidence would help his case. Each black-and-white photograph of the Mexican workers admitted into the U.S. under the program (dubbed “braceros”) radiates an empathetic vibrancy similar to that of the blue-collar workers captured in Dorothea Lange’s work.
One image shows a line of young Mexican men signing up for the program. American women sit at desks across from them, looking down at their typewriters with intense, downward-sloping eyebrows. Another photo shows a group of shirtless men getting checked out by a doctor; Ornelas explains that most braceros came from rural parts of Mexico, and had probably never even been seen by a medical professional.
After the vetting process, bracero contracts—usually spanning a three to six-month period—were typed up on the spot. PHOTO: Courtesy of the Stanford University Libraries Special Collections (Ernesto Galarza Collection)
Born in the Mexican state of Jalisco and raised in Salinas, Ornelas heard a bounty of stories from his grandfather, Guadalupe Rodriguez, about his tenure as a bracero (“one who swings his arms”), and the pride he took in his work. Rodriguez became very skilled in areas that are now considered lost arts; he was a master with the cortito, a short-handled hoe used to thin lettuce, which required great strength and skill. Rodriguez’s son, German, a 62-year-old truck driver in Salinas, grew up watching his father pass on his knowledge to new braceros.
“My father always taught people the easy way to do [difficult] things,” German says. “He always said there was an easier way to do things, but sometimes you can’t see it.”
Cutting cauliflower is one example. After it’s picked, many leaves must be cut off, and Guadalupe would see many newcomers cut one leaf off at a time. He’d show them how to cut all the leaves off simultaneously.
Rodriguez passed away in 2020 at 89 years old. German and Ornelas say he had no regrets about his bracero history.
Ornelas’ reason for sharing the trove of photos is much different than Galarza’s reason for having them taken: he wants the public to experience these images the same way he experienced his grandfather’s stories. He hopes to remind those who see the images that the braceros weren’t powerless pawns who gave themselves to the U.S. government to be used, abused and discarded; the millions of Mexican men who participated in the federal program are responsible for building an agricultural empire on the Central Coast and beyond. The photos convey the humanity of a group of workers who are more often considered as statistics.
“These beautiful photographs need to be in public view,” Ornelas says.
Broken Promises
The Bracero Program was the most extensive guest worker program in U.S. history. More than two million Mexican men came to the country on short-term labor contracts between 1942 and 1964—an estimated 4.6 million contracts were signed. In exchange for the work, employers paid “market wages” and provided “sanitary conditions, free housing, affordable meals, occupational insurance and free transportation back to Mexico.” Or so they claimed.
During President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration, which instituted the earliest version of the Bracero Program, many fieldworkers endured horrendous conditions. Few promises were kept, so when a U.S. labor shortage instigated a second incarnation of the program during World War II, the Mexican government insisted the braceros receive adequate food, shelter and transportation.
By 1947, Bracero Program 2.0 was shut down. As a result, undocumented immigration into the U.S. skyrocketed throughout the 1950s, so the U.S. government came to yet another agreement with Mexico in 1952, reinstating the program to curb the stream of immigrants without papers; they would give sanctioned avenues into the U.S. to Mexican men looking to work. However, the agreement included some seemingly confusing stipulations, such as the fact that braceros weren’t allowed to strike, but they also weren’t allowed to work as scabs when other workers were striking.
Ornelas says that when the braceros first came to the Salinas Valley in 1942, Monterey County’s total ag production was about $17 million. When the program was axed in 1964, it had skyrocketed to $152.7 million.
Teaching the Legacy
Before Ornelas went to grad school, he worked as a U.S. History teacher at Alisal and Everett Alvarez High Schools in Salinas. That’s when he first began thinking about braceros and how outdated curriculums and ways of thinking have indirectly made students feel ashamed of their history.
“When I was a teacher, I found many kids were embarrassed about their heritage,” Ornelas says.
About two million young men entered into the bracero labor agreement for a chance to achieve the “American dream.” Many would return to Mexico or make multiple migrations back and forth. “Migration and immigration have continued,” Ornelas says. “You’re talking about a population dealing with families starving in rural Mexico; some came from urban areas. Some came from working-class backgrounds. So, the stories are not all the same. Some people endured a lot of abuse, returned to Mexico and never returned to the U.S.”
The braceros’ labor was responsible for creating and saving a struggling agricultural industry. Some of the ag entrepreneurs of the 1940s and ’50s were struggling because of the war, but the program turned a million-dollar sector into a $40 million industry in Monterey County alone. Within 22 years, it became a $200 million industry. Now it’s a multibillion-dollar industry in Monterey County with crops like strawberries, lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli.
Impromptu bracero processing centers were set up inside large U.S. municipal buildings where thousands would be vetted daily. PHOTO: Courtesy of the Stanford University Libraries Special Collections (Ernesto Galarza Collection)
“Part of [what I want to do] is to get the stories out in the cross-cultural and international education space,” says Ornelas. “We’ve developed a lesson plan readily available to any teacher.”
That lesson plan, “Mexicans in the US Agricultural Workforce,” has been approved to be used as part of schoolwide curriculums. Ornelas hopes teachers and school administrators will be open to this untold story. Not just the heartbreak and the abuses but allowing students to have pride in who they are and whatever their parents do for a living.
“Educate teachers and tell them that when you drive down these fields, it’s not just about feeling pity for these farmers,” Ornelas says. “These farmworkers are making significant contributions to the local agricultural economy and the nation. These are essential workers. I’m talking about that 8-year-old attending elementary school in Watsonville whose parents work hard. They appreciate how hard their parents work, but feel ashamed when they get to the classroom. I saw it so many times.”
Historically, educators have looked down upon working-class jobs.
“We have a lot to learn from the working-class population of this country, including farmworkers and agricultural workers; these are human beings, dignified people who are very intelligent,” Ornelas says. “Few know how todecide which piece of lettuce to consistently cut, trim and pack all day. It’s also about empowering young people to say their parents might be doing this challenging, backbreaking work. It’s something that we should all be proud of. They are making significant contributions.”
Art Meets History
Tijuana artist Daniel Ruanova embraced the identity he had long tried to reject—a border artist, or in his words, a “border rat”—after spending three years in an art district outside of Beijing with his wife.
In 2013, a restaurateur and childhood friend commissioned Ruanova to create a centerpiece for his new high-end restaurant in San Diego, Bracero Cocina. Ruanova discovered a new sense of creative direction when studying the braceros’ history. The gig opened a new door of perception; he wanted to explore the history of the men who participated in the program that has been scorned for decades.
Ruanova created a mechanical sculpture, “The Mexican Labor Agreement,” which features 32 cortitos for the restaurant. The cortitos represent one of the standard tools of the bracero trade. The number “32” is a tribute tothe 32 braceros tragically killed in 1963 when the bus transporting them from their Chualar labor camp to Salinas Valley celery fields collided with an oncoming train.
Creating the sculpture for the restaurant wasn’t enough for the artist. He wanted to delve deeper into the history of braceros.
“I started to reach out to all of the academics who were looking for a different narrative than the politically-correct narrative that is now the Mexican-American history in the United States,” Ruanova explains. “[Ornelas] was the only person who got back to me.”
Ornelas invited Ruanova to Salinas to talk to braceros himself and feel the soil in his hands.
“Daniel gets it, and through his art, he wants to honor the braceros,” Ornelas says.
With sponsorship from Stanford University, Ornelas and Ruanova launched the Bracero Legacy Project in 2015 to bring that paradigm shift of the braceros to the public using art, history and education. The duo asserts that the braceros weren’t meek people “willing to embondage themselves.”
Everything that the Bracero Legacy Project does is part of an effort to reframe how braceros are understood in U.S. history, “with much more attention paid to the sense of hope and opportunity the program inspired in its participants.”
Four newly-contracted braceros wait to be photographed for identification purposes—most were also fingerprinted. PHOTO: Courtesy of the Stanford University Libraries Special Collections (Ernesto Galarza Collection)
Ornelas knew the photos he had found were more significant than his dissertation, which is where Ruanova’s perspective as a visual artist comes in.
“He encouraged me to get this beautiful history and artwork out to a larger audience,” Ornelas says. “It’s meant for the public to see.”
Adds Ruanova, “We’re doing public intervention with the [Galarza] archival photography. The photographers were sent out to vilify the braceros. In the end, there were many positive experiences for the braceros.”
Ornelas aims to open discussions that academics have mostly avoided throughout the years.
“There was a period where historians were good about documenting the abuses and the history and all that,” he begins. “But I found it difficult to make a connection to [braceros’] legacy. Who are their kids? Where are their grandkids? I started to find remarkable stories of people who are now city council members, state senators, members of Congress and entrepreneurs who had parents or grandparents who were former braceros.”
Ornelas has spent a lot of time documenting these individuals, like Monterey County Supervisor Simon Salinas and former Watsonville Mayor Ana Ventura Phares—whose father was a bracero.
“We’re familiar with the overt abuse that occurred,” he says. “But part of the Bracero Legacy Project highlights all the various journeys.”
Before the Bracero Program began, intergenerational families from impoverished Mexican countryside communities had already been betrayed by the Mexican Revolution, which was supposed to provide agrarian reform and land-owning opportunities to peasants, but never brought upward economic mobility.
Ruanova and Ornelas don’t discount any of the hardships of migration, immigration and everything that comes with it. It continues in 2022.
“The ugly, the bad separation, the different forms of working-class poverty in places like Watsonville and Salinas,” Ornelas says. “There are many broken bodies; agricultural labor [takes a toll] on the body—and the toxins and pesticides on top of everything.”
‘Transborder’ Comes to MAH
On Sunday, Sept.18, Ornelas and Ruanova will bring the BLP to Santa Cruz, starting with a discussion that will feature acclaimed photojournalist David Bacon, who’s been documenting agricultural laborers for about four decades. The conversation will focus on the history of ag workers and the Bracero Program, but they will also discuss modern-day braceros, like the H-2A workers.
“Many people think that the Bracero Program officially ended in 1964, but the U.S. is continuing to recruit and bring agricultural workers, mostly from Mexico, to work in places like Watsonville, Monterey County and across California,” Ornelas explains.
The Legacy Project’s most crucial component is bringing the history, the stories and the education to the public. While museums are essential outlets to showcase the work, Ruanova and Ornelas want more people to be exposed.
As part of CommonGround, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History’s new “biennial festival of place-inspired, outdoor work hosted in locations throughout Santa Cruz County,” Ruanova and Ornelas have created “Transborder.”
The mobile installation features an assortment of Galarza’s mesmerizing photos, enlarged and attached to wood sculptures constructed by Ruanova. Each image will include an audio component featuring the oral histories Ornelas has collected and music from the era, including a rare recording of a song, “Tragedy at Chualar,”about the accident that killed 32 people.
The “train” of photos on wheels will be on display at three Santa Cruz farmers markets: Downtown Santa Cruz (Sept. 21, 1-6pm), Watsonville (Sept. 23, 2-7pm) and Live Oak (Sept. 25; 9am-1pm).
“We want to give new light to the images of citizens on their journey to the land of opportunity,” Ornelas says.
The Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History will present ‘Transborder Braceros, Labor History, and Art,’ a conversation featuring Ignacio Ornelas, Daniel Ruanova and David Bacon, on Sunday, Sept. 18, 2pm., at the MAH, 705 Front St., Santa Cruz. Free with registration. santacruzmah.org.
Can the preservation of agricultural land be racist?
It’s a question that many politicians would shy away from answering, but one that Francisco “Paco” Estrada has seemingly leaned into.
Last year, the first-term Watsonville City Councilman tore a chasm between the city and a committee aiming to preserve Pajaro Valley’s rich farmlands. During what was expected to be a brief update on the city’s efforts to overhaul its general plan at a city council meeting, Estrada unloaded an emotional statement about Watsonville’s current issues with housing affordability and economic stagnation.
“We have all these small groups telling us how we can grow, how we can build our city—they tell us what type of transportation we can and can’t have—where’s the democracy there?” Estrada asked. “The needs of the people are not being met … It’s hard to not call out the racism in all of this.”
With less than 60 days before Watsonville voters will head to the polls to decide the fate of a proposed 18-year extension of the city’s current urban growth restrictions, Estrada is not backing away from his statements. On the contrary, he’s doubling down on his assertions that the way the Committee for Planned Growth and Farmland Protection crafted Measure Q is undemocratic, and that there need to be more conversations about Measure U’s legacy and whether its proposed successor will contribute to institutional racism.
As he talks about how many Watsonville residents will not be able to sound their voice on Nov. 8—an election he says will chart the future of at least two generations—Estrada begins to slow his breakneck train of thought to make something clear.
“I’m not calling anyone a racist,” he tells me in a late-summer interview, “but I think it’s important to talk about whether this measure contributes to racism. When I look at the health outcomes in this community, it’s always people of color that have the most disproportionate outcome. In every major indicator, people of color are at the bottom of everything.”
On their ballots, Watsonville voters will see two measures that propose drastically different options for how Santa Cruz County’s southernmost city can plan out its future. The aforementioned Measure Q—a product of the agriculture industry-backed committee—would keep the outward growth restrictions approved by voters in 2002 in place through 2040. Measure S—placed on the ballot by the city council in opposition—proposes to alter the city’s so-called Urban Limit Line as determined by the city council in its forthcoming general plan update, a multi-year community visioning process that jurisdictions undergo.
Though the two measures deal primarily with land-use designations, proponents of Measure S say that the issue before Watsonville voters is about social justice and autonomy.
“Do we want to control our own future, or do we want someone else to tell us what community we should be?” Estrada says. “I really think that’s what’s at stake.”
Measure of Success
The city and the committee over the past year have had heated debates about whether Measure U has accomplished what it intended when more than 60% of voters approved it two decades ago.
Proponents of Measure Q say that Measure U’s growth restrictions have had an overwhelmingly positive effect on Watsonville over the past 19 years. They say that preserving agricultural land has not only kept the Pajaro Valley’s strong presence in the industry intact, but has also forced the city to focus on dense, infill development and limit urban sprawl. And, they add, there are still plenty of underutilized and vacant properties throughout the city that can be redeveloped to help the city meet its mounting housing and economic needs—in July the city said downtown could accommodate around 4,000 new units when its Downtown Watsonville Specific Plan efforts are completed next year.
Opponents, however, say Measure U has hamstrung the city’s ability to adequately build housing—specifically, single-family homes for purchase—and lure large employers and economic drivers commonplace in other cities.
Estrada says allowing Measure U to expire and conducting the general plan process not only gives the community the opportunity to envision its future together, but it also allows the public to truly dive into the pluses and minuses of preserving ag land at all costs.
“For [the committee] to just copy and paste [Measure U], that’s where I felt it was undemocratic,” he says. “For something that’s going to last an entire generation, the community needs to be present in these conversations. I think there are a lot of voices, a lot of good opinions, a lot of good things we haven’t taken into consideration yet. And to just put it on the ballot and try to pretend like [Measure U] has been a complete success when, honestly, if you talk to any Millennial they’ll tell you that the last 20 years have not been a success.”
It was a year-long community visioning process that produced Measure U, which Watsonville City Councilwoman Rebecca Garcia calls a historic compromise that gathered feedback and opinions from all corners of the community. By the time it went before voters, Measure U was endorsed by the city council, Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau and Watsonville Wetlands Watch as well as several other county and state agencies. It garnered that support because neither side got everything it wanted, Garcia adds.
“Twenty years ago there were so many meetings where negotiation and compromise occurred to determine the urban limit,” Garcia says. “I attended many of those meetings. Watsonville has changed in the past 20 years, so there should have been negotiation and compromise again. But instead, the committee chose only to get signatures.”
Committee member Sam Earnshaw says that opponents’ claims that Measure Q is undemocratic are “ridiculous,” and that if the city truly wanted to negotiate in good faith about making slight changes to the Urban Limit Line, those discussions would have happened years ago.
He also points out that Watsonville voters not only overwhelmingly approved Measure U, but that they also rejected Measure T, a 2013 ballot measure that would have opened the door for the city to annex about 95 acres of agricultural land off Riverside Drive for future development.
“The people of Watsonville understand the need for growth, but are very opposed to sprawl onto our fertile farmlands,” Earnshaw says. “We consistently heard people saying that we do not want to turn into San Jose, and annexing agricultural lands, piece by piece, is how incrementally the paving over more and more flat land builds momentum.”
Earnshaw adds that despite the committee’s hardline stance on the preservation of agricultural land, it still worked with the city to come up with a compromise to their measure. That agreement, which would have opened up 13.6 acres to commercial development near Highway 1, was tossed out by the city council in a split 4-3 vote earlier this year.
“Four council members voted against this, and lost the opportunity for the Redman-Hirahara property to finally be part of Watsonville,” Earnshaw says. “It was a historic compromise, and a historic decision to reject this for the city.”
Earnshaw was largely dismissive of questions about voting rights and simply said that “voting on an issue is the essence of democracy.”
And while some say that elections and representation in Watsonville politics have improved since that landmark decision, others think that the historic implementation of district elections is slowly being chipped away, and that nothing is being done to address growing political apathy. The recent June primary, for example, saw the lowest percentage of registered voters (24.26%) cast their ballots in the race for 4th District County Supervisor since at least the turn of the century. And in the upcoming Nov. 8 election, three city council candidates will walk into office unopposed.
It is easy for Francisco Rodriguez to draw parallels between 2022 and 2012, when four people ran unopposed for the city council. The former President of the Pajaro Valley Federation of Teachers says that the city nor the community ever made a concerted effort to truly address the issues perpetuating political apathy—like, he suggests, making government more accessible for Spanish-speaking residents and working with local educators to increase political interest among youth.
Instead, a committee called Let the People Vote proposed three measures that, Rodriguez says, shifted political power away from a majority Latinx city council under the guise of increasing political engagement. Those measures—H, I and J—revoked the city council’s power to fill a vacancy, elect a mayor and name public places.
Rodriguez, who campaigned heavily against the trio of measures in 2014, says that by taking those decisions away from the council and sending them to a city-wide election, the Let the People Vote committee successfully undermined the city’s district election system and set a precedent for other campaigns to follow.
Rodriguez and his peers in opposition to the measures called the Let the People Vote committee’s efforts “undemocratic” and said that they were racially motivated. He still sticks by those claims today.
“I don’t think the H, I, J proposals changed anything and the argument can be that [they] may have made things worse,” Rodriguez says.
Come November
Councilwoman Garcia is a staunch supporter of elections—one of her favorite pastimes is running a voter registration booth at local events—but admits that they have limitations in the Pajaro Valley.
“Voting is part of democracy, but in Watsonville, we have a lot of ineligible voters,” says Garcia. “In a democracy, these residents’ voices should still be heard, if not by voting [then] by having the opportunity to speak out. [Measure Q] was not inclusive, including those that are registered to vote.”
As the election draws near, Garcia and other Measure S supporters have shifted their focus from explaining why they believe Measure Q is problematic to why voters should side with them.
That has not been an easy task, Estrada admits. After all, he says, most Watsonville voters will have never heard of a general plan, let alone an Urban Limit Line. But, he adds, they do drive by agricultural land every day and likely have some emotional tie to the agriculture industry from their upbringing.
“It’s just a lot to have to educate the public about,” Estrada says. “But, at the end of the day, whether they side with us or not, educating the public about the issue is the most important thing.”
Estrada says that a key demographic for the election will be Watsonville residents under 35. With 4,664 registered voters between the age of 25-35 and another 4,041 between the age of 18-25, Watsonville’s younger population vastly outnumbers any other combination of older age groups, according to county voting data. But Estrada admits it will be a challenge to get those voters to the polls in similar numbers to their older counterparts, even if he thinks they have the most at stake when it comes to Measure Q and S.
Asked what his pitch to this group will be, he says he plans to tell voters to ask themselves one question: “Are you happy with the progress made in the last 20 years?”
“Because if you’re happy, then I think you should support [Measure Q],” Estrada says. “But if you think this community deserves more and needs more than we’ve gotten … then support [Measure S]. Me, personally, I believe that we deserve to determine our own future.”
A large majority of Santa Cruz city workers have authorized a strike, claiming the 3.5% increase offered in the most recent round of negotiations is not enough to make a living in the county, where the cost of rent has been reported as the second highest in the nation.
SEIU Local 521 Vice President Juan Molina said that 95% of workers authorized the strike, a majority he said will send a clear message to city officials that, while not yet an official strike, one is imminent unless union demands are met.
“…This city doesn’t run by itself,” he said. “If all of these workers were suddenly gone tomorrow, what would happen? Our water wouldn’t be clean, our streets would be filled with trash, and we wouldn’t have safe streets to walk on.”
More than 40 people attended the conference, a group that included city workers and public officials.
“To be clear, we do not want to strike,” said parking facilities technician Gabriella Salinas-Holtz. “But the city’s unfair labor practices and illegal tactics have forced us to prepare for a work stoppage to secure the investments needed to provide safe services for the community.”
During their last bargaining session, union members asked for a 7.5% pay increase, a $4,000 one-time pandemic payment, and an additional 2.5% pension costs, which City Manager Matt Huffaker said is impossible. Negotiations are still ongoing, he said, adding that the City is hoping to schedule another meeting as soon as this week.
“I understand our SEIU members would like to see more offered at the negotiating table, but we have to balance meeting their demands with the city’s available resources in the short and long term,” he stated in an email. “With that said, we are eager to return to the negotiating table and work collaboratively to reach a fair agreement.”
Senior Planner Catherine Donovan pointed out that city workers continued to work, despite the dangers of Covid and agreed to a pay reduction to help the city weather the storm.
“During the pandemic, city workers took a furlough to keep the city afloat,” Donovan said. “We worked hard, some of us from home but many in the trenches exposed to the dangers of Covid.”
David Tannaci, who works for the water department, described the praise from City officials for their tenacity during the pandemic as “empty praise.”
“At this critical moment, our elected city council and management have the opportunity to set themselves apart, show their prowess as leaders to resolve the revolving door of staffing,” he said.
After the brief press conference, some workers attended the 12:30pm meeting of the Santa Cruz City Council, where they stated their demands before the members went into closed session.
“Every single City Council member is going to have to make a decision before they go into closed session today,” said SEIU Chief Elected Officer Riko Méndez.
However, open meeting laws typically prohibit elected officials from discussing issues not previously placed on the agenda. But the council can bring the issue back at a future meeting.
Ocean lovers around Santa Cruz County are gearing up for a busy weekend. This Saturday, volunteers at 64 sites around Monterey Bay will celebrate International Coastal Cleanup Day. And on Sunday, the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary invites the public to celebrate its 30th anniversary at Sanctuary Fest, a free community event.
Local nonprofit Save Our Shores is spearheading the volunteer efforts; the organization, known for its beach cleanups and educational programs, will host 64 cleanups that stretch from Año Nuevo State Beach in Pescadero to Andrew Molera State Park in Big Sur.
The event will also extend inland. Six groups will focus on the San Lorenzo River, from Boulder Creek to the river mouth. Other volunteers will meet at Watsonville Slough, and one group will meet even farther south at Arroyo Seco in Big Sur.
All cleanups start at 9am and end at noon. For those unable to make it on Sept. 17, Save Our Shores recommends downloading the Clean Swell App to do a self-guided cleanup anytime in September.
Volunteers can register for cleanups and learn more about the app on the Save Our Shores website, saveourshores.org.
After caring for the bay on Saturday, the public can celebrate it on Sunday. The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary will commemorate its 30th anniversary as well as the 50th anniversary of the National Marine Sanctuary System on Sept. 18.
The Sanctuary Fest will take place from 10am to 3pm on the Santa Cruz Wharf, Cowell Beach and the Sanctuary Exploration Center.
The MBNMS Foundation, Save the Waves Coalition, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, Save Our Shores and other partners will offer demonstrations and outreach activities at an exhibitor fair on the wharf.
Guests can also register on the Sanctuary Fest website to join kayak nature tours, stand-up paddleboarding lessons and wildlife tours.
The 30th annual Aloha Outrigger Races, hosted by the Pu Pu ‘O Hawai’i Outrigger Canoe Club and the City of Santa Cruz Parks and Recreation, will start at 9am off the Santa Cruz Wharf.
On the shore, activities include sand sculpture-building on Cowell Beach, virtual scavenger hunts along the wharf and marine science talks and films at the Sanctuary Exploration Center across the street.For more information and to register for activities, visit the Sanctuary Fest webpage at montereybay.noaa.gov.
ARIES (March 21-April 19): My reader Monica Ballard has this advice for you Aries folks: “If you don’t vividly ask for and eagerly welcome the gifts the Universe has in store for you, you may have to settle for trinkets and baubles. So never settle.” That’s always useful counsel for you Rams. And in the coming weeks, you will be wise to heed it with extra intensity. Here’s a good metaphor to spur you on: Don’t fill up on junk snacks or glitzy hors d’oeuvres. Instead, hold out for gourmet feasts featuring healthy, delectable entrées.
TAURUS (April 20-May 20): I will remind you about a potential superpower that is your birthright to develop: You can help people to act in service to the deepest truths and strongest love. You can even teach them how to do it. Have you been ripening this talent in 2022? Have you been bringing it more to the forefront of your relationships? I hope so. The coming months will stir you to go further than ever before in expressing this gift. For best results, take a vow to nurture the deepest truths and strongest love in all your thoughts and dealings with others.
GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Your mind is sometimes a lush and beautiful maze that you get lost in. Is that a problem? Now and then it is, yes. But just as often, it’s an entertaining blessing. As you wander around amidst the lavish finery, not quite sure of where you are or where you’re going, you often make discoveries that rouse your half-dormant potentials. You luckily stumble into unforeseen insights you didn’t realize you needed to know. I believe the description I just articulated fits your current ramble through the amazing maze. My advice: Don’t be in a mad rush to escape. Allow this dizzying but dazzling expedition to offer you all its rich teachings.
CANCER (June 21-July 22): “Poetry is a life-cherishing force,” said Pulitzer Prize-winner Mary Oliver, who published 33 volumes of poetry and read hundreds of other poets. Her statement isn’t true for everyone, of course. To reach the point where reading poetry provides our souls with nourishment, we may have to work hard to learn how to appreciate it. Some of us don’t have the leisure or temperament to do so. In any case, Cancerian, what are your life-cherishing forces? What influences inspire you to know and feel all that’s most precious about your time on earth? Now would be an excellent time to ruminate on those treasures—and take steps to nurture them with tender ingenuity.
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Please promise me you will respect and revere your glorious star power in the coming weeks. I feel it’s important, both to you and those whose lives you touch, that you exalt and exult in your access to your magnificence. For everyone’s benefit, you should play freely with the art of being majestic and regal and sovereign. To do this right, you must refrain from indulging in trivial wishes, passing fancies and minor attractions. You must give yourself to what’s stellar. You must serve your holiest longings, your riveting dreams and your thrilling hopes.
VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): It’s impossible to be perfect. It’s neither healthy nor productive to obsess on perfectionism. You know these things. You understand you can’t afford to get bogged down in overthinking and overreaching and overpolishing. And when you are at your best, you sublimate such manic urges. You transform them into the elegant intention to clarify and refine and refresh. With grace and care, you express useful beauty instead of aiming for hyper-immaculate precision. I believe that in the coming weeks, dear Virgo, you will be a master of these services—skilled at performing them for yourself and others.
LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): According to Libran poet T. S. Eliot, “What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.” Those are your guiding thoughts for the coming days, Libra. You’re almost ready to start fresh; you’re on the verge of being able to start planning your launch date or grand opening. Now all you have to do is create a big crisp emptiness where the next phase will have plenty of room to germinate. The best way to do that is to finish the old process as completely as possible.
SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): Now and then, you slip into phases when you’re poised on the brink of either self-damage or self-discovery. You wobble and lurch on the borderline where self-undoing vies with self-creation. Whenever this situation arises, here are key questions to ask yourself: Is there a strategy you can implement to ensure that you glide into self-discovery and self-creation? Is there a homing thought that will lure you away from the perverse temptations of self-damage and self-undoing? The answers to these queries are always yes—if you regard love as your top priority and if you serve the cause of love over every other consideration.
SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): “Sometimes serendipity is just intention unmasked,” said Sagittarian author Elizabeth Berg. I suspect her theory will be true for you in the coming weeks. You have done an adroit job of formulating your intentions and collecting the information you need to carry out your intentions. What may be best now is to relax your focus as you make room for life to respond to your diligent preparations. “I’m a great believer in luck,” said my Uncle Ned. “I’ve found that the harder I work, the more luck I have.” He was correct, but it’s also true that luck sometimes surges your way when you’ve taken a break from your hard work.
CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): Tips to get the most out of the next six weeks: 1. Be the cautiously optimistic voice of reason. Be the methodical motivator who prods and inspires. Organize as you uplift. Encourage others as you build efficiency. 2. Don’t take other people’s apparent stupidity or rudeness as personal affronts. Try to understand how the suffering they have endured may have led to their behavior. 3. Be your own father. Guide yourself as a wise and benevolent male elder would. 4. Seek new ways to experience euphoria and enchantment, with an emphasis on what pleasures will also make you healthier.
AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): Aquarian author Richard Ford has advice for writers: “Find what causes a commotion in your heart. Find a way to write about that.” I will amend his counsel to apply to all of you non-writers, as well. By my reckoning, the coming weeks will be prime time to be gleefully honest as you identify what causes commotions in your heart. Why should you do that? Because it will lead you to the good decisions you need to make in the coming months. As you attend to this holy homework, I suggest you direct the following invitation to the universe: “Beguile me, mystify me, delight me, fascinate me and rouse me to feel deep, delicious feelings.”
PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): “I am lonely, yet not everybody will do,” observed Piscean author Anaïs Nin. “Some people fill the gaps, and others emphasize my loneliness,” she concluded. According to my reading of the astrological omens, Pisces, it’s your task right now to identify which people intensify your loneliness and which really do fill the gaps. And then devote yourself with extra care to cultivating your connections with the gap-fillers. Loneliness is sometimes a good thing—a state that helps you renew and deepen your communion with your deep self. But I don’t believe that’s your assignment these days. Instead, you’ll be wise to experience intimacy that enriches your sense of feeling at home in the world. You’ll thrive by consorting with allies who sweeten your love of life.
Homework: I invite you to send a blessing to someone you regard as challenging to bless. Testify: Newsletter.FreeWillAstrology.com.
