UPDATE: Please check out BentLiberal's new Diary with excellent video on Watsonville immigrant camp.
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For background please see Part I. For even better diaries, please see possible upcoming ones by MB, Navajo, Citisven, BentLiberal, Norm, Glen the Plumber, & Remembrance.
After we left the riverside encampment & the field of the death marker, we all did so with heavier hearts than those with which we had when we first crawled through the chain-link fence.

We next found ourselves outside a two-story duplex. We waited outside as Doctor Lopez respectfully asked the family if we could all go in & talk with them.
After the family agreed, Doctor Lopez & Navajo left on an errand. In a way, the entire trip to Watsonville was Navajo's errand.
When Jill Richardson the initiator of the trip had to cancel, Navajo immediately stepped up. She grabbed us kossacks cats by the tail, & herded us down to Watsonville (Boyle Heights, home of working class Latinos, even made an appearance in the form of MB). The same way, as from her sickbed, she herded us the week prior to meet MOT, the same way she has organized 1000 other events.
The departure of the two women who had organized the event left MB & myself to translate. He'd already been doing so & wanted a break from translating (& a chance to listen), & so I had to briefly fill his shoes (lol, picture an 8 year old in his father's shoes-with each foot in the wrong shoe). Unlike MB, I don't have decades of interviewing people behind me, or his professionalism as a journalist. I had no clue how such an interview should go.
I just talked with the wife (the husband, Don "Arturo", was napping) as if she were a comadre of mine. A risky thing to do at best. Luckily, this time it turned out to be the best only because Doña "Martina" was the best. She immediately picked up on some of the slang words I used (she is from the fields of Michoacan, & my Spanish is from the fields of neighboring Jalisco) & responded in kind.
Dona "Martina is raising 5 kids (one now living in limbo in Mexico waiting to hear from the U.S. consulate), she works a back-breaking job picking raspberries, has done this for 16 years, mostly without the aid of English or any documentation, she runs a spotless kitchen to feed the 7 people in her family crew...and yet she came back at me with humor, insight, & a broad smile over & over again as she told us in detail about her life & how they've all managed to survive so far. She was quick. Quicker than I. As I was asking about her family, she began asking about mine. She would not be denied. She turned the tables on me.
Man, I fell in love (acaso, Don "Arturo", estas leyendo...ya sabes compa' que estoy hablando con puro cariño y no falta respeto a nadie-meant with fondness & all respect).
Luckily, Doctor Lopez & Navajo returned & kept the discussion focused. The doctor suggested having the husband, Don "Arturo", come out & speak with us.
I worried a bit how he would react coming into a room of strangers that had already been interacting with his wife & family for some time. When he came out Dr. Lopez introduced everyone.
I offered him my chair, which he refused to take until I sat down on the floor below him.
Perdon, está cabrón que te despertemos (Sorry, it's "really awful" we woke you up).
He shot a glance at his wife & then smiled knowlingly at me upon hearing "cabrón", & I saw in his humorous response that the safety switch was turning off. He was among friends.
Trabajas un chingo, y luego aqui estamos dando lata (you work a hell of a lot & then you have to deal with us bothering you).
No, nada de eso amiiigo, estan bienvenidos (That's not true, you're all truly welcome here).
He told us about working 8 years picking mushrooms inside where noxious pestilents are sprayed. He told us about working another 8 years before that outside picking raspberries. He told us about his compadre that was fired after working 30 years in the same place for just having been accused of taking home a handful of mushrooms. A handful. Unless his back gives out first, Don "Arturo" will probably face a similar fate.
As his wife had done, Don "Arturo" turned the tables on me & asked if we were all gringos (he didn't say "gringos", but I can't recall the non-perjorative term he used). I looked up at MB & Navajo & was at an inexplicable loss of how to respond. I tried to recall the Spanish for Seminole & Navajo (NaVAjo), mumbled something about tribus (tribes) & indigenas, but was suddenly too caught up in personal emotions to explain. The inter-relationship between the 3 of them was nonetheless as clear in my mind as it was stuck in my throat. It was as though 500 years of racism, over-simplification and denial had stuck fingers down my throat & then up into my brain. Strange that...because at the Nov 2 General Strike in Oakland, I had no problem explaining to reporters why I wore "Honor the Fort Laramie Treaties" on my back.
Would've been a golden opportunity to ask Don "Arturo" about his own Sangre de Indio (Indian Blood-& the name of a popular song in Mexico). While definitely not tribal, he was nonetheless obviously of indigenous blood. His generation in Mexico is no longer ashamed of their own indigenous roots...& yet rural indigenous communities that don't speak Spanish are still targets of racism & derision by others of the same blood.
As we were leaving, I commented to Doña "Martina" on the array of pots she kept stashed under the small dining table...mentioning pozole in the process. A huge mistake. That was it, she declared, she was having us all back for her home-cooked pozole. I could smell it already. I was momentarily tempted to abandon my fellow-kossacks & ask permiso to sleep on the couch over-night. Without a moment's hesitation, they would've said, claro que si (of course).
I didn't leave that house feeling that I just met some unfortunate souls. Life has been hard (& will continue to be) on Don "Arturo" & his family, grueling, leaving him with only a pocket of change to face past & future hardships. Nonetheless, the love & humor in that house make him a rich man. The intelligence of his wife make him a protected one. He couldn't survive otherwise. And he knows it.
I'll be lucky if I ever get to visit with them both again. They are compadres (not in a literal sense).
We were outside leaving when we discovered we had our own problem. Glen the Plumber had left his lights on (I'm not laughing because I did the same the day before) and his car battery died. Dead battery in rainy weather. A police patrol car happened along (irony #1). Could he help us? No, he could not (irony #2). Could he find someone to help us? No, he could not.
I went to get help. You can probably guess who I turned to. My new compadre, Don "Arturo", didn't own cables. He didn't give up though. He went to his neighbors looking for cables. He found us cables. HE got US out of trouble (irony #3).
We came prepared to help, and we did, but we couldn't help ourselves when we got stuck. We became dependent on undocumenteds...as has our country. As I have myself in the past.
I was not surprised.
(Cropped photo below from Navajo's camera as taken by Norm)

The photo above shows (L to R) Remembrance, Glen the Plumber, Citisven, MB, & Navajo (herding a Cat into the photo). The torn & battered brown leather jacket I wore that day is the same one as in my avatar pix below from almost two decades prior.

No coincidence. I got it from an undocumented worker here in the U.S. when I had no other jacket. I wore it later in Mexico (as in my avatar) when I held my then undocumented son in my arms. That is why I wore it the day before yesterday. It helps me to remember where I've been, who I've been, who has helped me, & who I owe. Some of those people are in the photo 2 photos above. Others are working in the fields in the background. All of us, for a few all too brief moments, kossacks & field workers, shared a connection that broke through a stormy sky.
(Photo below taken that day by Citisven)

P.S. Neither this diary nor its predecessor (Part I) does justice to the work Dr. Lopez has done here & in Mexico. That is yet another reason to look out for diaries by other kossacks on this. For example, MB is currently reading her book & undoubtedly will have insights barely, if at all, alluded to here.
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UPDATE: Please check out BentLiberal's new Diary with excellent video on Watsonville immigrant camp.