WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.320 align:middle line:90% 00:00:04.320 --> 00:00:08.490 align:middle line:84% I'll read a couple of excerpts from a sequence-- a series-- 00:00:08.490 --> 00:00:12.390 align:middle line:84% a sequence poem called "Serpentine Voices." 00:00:12.390 --> 00:00:14.400 align:middle line:84% What I've tried to do in this book 00:00:14.400 --> 00:00:17.550 align:middle line:84% is document the struggles of three generations, 00:00:17.550 --> 00:00:21.720 align:middle line:84% approximately-- three, four, five generations of people 00:00:21.720 --> 00:00:24.150 align:middle line:84% who have worked in the fields, following them 00:00:24.150 --> 00:00:26.850 align:middle line:84% from the point of immigration to the fields 00:00:26.850 --> 00:00:29.700 align:middle line:84% and then leaving the fields behind. 00:00:29.700 --> 00:00:32.430 align:middle line:84% And then ultimately circling back and going 00:00:32.430 --> 00:00:35.070 align:middle line:84% to demonstrate with the United Farm Workers 00:00:35.070 --> 00:00:38.040 align:middle line:84% at the edges of those same fields. 00:00:38.040 --> 00:00:40.320 align:middle line:84% Right now I have the privilege of having 00:00:40.320 --> 00:00:41.640 align:middle line:90% a student in my office-- 00:00:41.640 --> 00:00:44.010 align:middle line:90% a student in one of my classes-- 00:00:44.010 --> 00:00:47.220 align:middle line:84% whose father owns one of the tomato fields I didn't pick in. 00:00:47.220 --> 00:00:49.890 align:middle line:90% 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:54.000 align:middle line:84% So it always seems to come back full circle. 00:00:54.000 --> 00:00:55.860 align:middle line:90% "From Silence." 00:00:55.860 --> 00:00:58.920 align:middle line:84% I think it's important to understand this title, too-- 00:00:58.920 --> 00:01:02.370 align:middle line:84% that part of my own education included 00:01:02.370 --> 00:01:06.750 align:middle line:84% taking several courses in graduate level Spanish-- 00:01:06.750 --> 00:01:10.560 align:middle line:84% Spanish graduate courses in Latin American Women's 00:01:10.560 --> 00:01:13.410 align:middle line:84% literature, because I felt there was 00:01:13.410 --> 00:01:17.820 align:middle line:84% this gap in my own understanding of my own cultural identity, 00:01:17.820 --> 00:01:20.070 align:middle line:84% that there was more I needed to know 00:01:20.070 --> 00:01:24.210 align:middle line:84% to understand how it was that the process of colonization 00:01:24.210 --> 00:01:30.030 align:middle line:84% and decolonization influenced the kind of character that 00:01:30.030 --> 00:01:33.510 align:middle line:84% developed in the '70s and '80s in the United States. 00:01:33.510 --> 00:01:36.900 align:middle line:84% These women's voices coming not just from the United States 00:01:36.900 --> 00:01:39.810 align:middle line:84% but from all of the Latin American world-- 00:01:39.810 --> 00:01:41.940 align:middle line:90% Spanish-speaking world. 00:01:41.940 --> 00:01:42.990 align:middle line:90% And one of the-- 00:01:42.990 --> 00:01:46.230 align:middle line:84% I mean using the term now-- ovarian works I read was 00:01:46.230 --> 00:01:50.430 align:middle line:84% a novella by Maria Luisa Bombal titled La Última Niebla, 00:01:50.430 --> 00:01:53.760 align:middle line:84% in which for the first time-- imagine this little over 00:01:53.760 --> 00:01:56.430 align:middle line:84% 20-year-old Chilean woman of the upper class, 00:01:56.430 --> 00:01:58.680 align:middle line:84% sitting at Pablo Neruda's kitchen table, 00:01:58.680 --> 00:02:00.900 align:middle line:84% writing a book in which she documents the struggles 00:02:00.900 --> 00:02:05.430 align:middle line:84% to discover a sense of identity outside of being someone's wife 00:02:05.430 --> 00:02:06.690 align:middle line:90% and someone's daughter. 00:02:06.690 --> 00:02:10.020 align:middle line:84% And the terms she used were "el silencio" meaning "the silence" 00:02:10.020 --> 00:02:12.700 align:middle line:84% and "el vacío" meaning "the void." 00:02:12.700 --> 00:02:14.700 align:middle line:84% And so both those terms come into play 00:02:14.700 --> 00:02:16.890 align:middle line:90% in this particular poem. 00:02:16.890 --> 00:02:20.010 align:middle line:90% "From Silence. 00:02:20.010 --> 00:02:23.430 align:middle line:84% How many voices can I plum in this poem. 00:02:23.430 --> 00:02:26.460 align:middle line:84% Tricky poem, sometimes in the first person 00:02:26.460 --> 00:02:30.630 align:middle line:84% "I," as in sometimes the story is mine, as in me 00:02:30.630 --> 00:02:33.090 align:middle line:84% the author, the first-person narrator. 00:02:33.090 --> 00:02:37.800 align:middle line:84% And at times the voice becomes third person "we," plural, 00:02:37.800 --> 00:02:39.120 align:middle line:90% not imperial. 00:02:39.120 --> 00:02:44.730 align:middle line:84% Because sometimes we were all voice, girlfriends, mis amigas, 00:02:44.730 --> 00:02:46.020 align:middle line:90% de parte de. 00:02:46.020 --> 00:02:49.800 align:middle line:84% On behalf of all of us, voices drowning out that choking 00:02:49.800 --> 00:02:53.580 align:middle line:84% silencio, that pestilent marshland of a vacío. 00:02:53.580 --> 00:02:55.800 align:middle line:90% Because we were something. 00:02:55.800 --> 00:02:58.410 align:middle line:90% God, we were something else." 00:02:58.410 --> 00:03:01.280 align:middle line:90% 00:03:01.280 --> 00:03:02.750 align:middle line:90% "Huelga. 00:03:02.750 --> 00:03:04.790 align:middle line:90% Fresno slumps late summer. 00:03:04.790 --> 00:03:07.430 align:middle line:84% Raisin grapes dry on paper trays. 00:03:07.430 --> 00:03:11.060 align:middle line:84% Crepe myrtle, purple plum burnish the college campus, 00:03:11.060 --> 00:03:14.960 align:middle line:84% student body twice the size of my hometown. 00:03:14.960 --> 00:03:18.530 align:middle line:84% Winemaking meets a general education mode. 00:03:18.530 --> 00:03:21.650 align:middle line:84% Professors serve finals at the Gallo Winery. 00:03:21.650 --> 00:03:24.350 align:middle line:84% Agriculture majors milk cows at dawn, 00:03:24.350 --> 00:03:28.940 align:middle line:84% saunter back to plates of thick bacon, butter-basted eggs. 00:03:28.940 --> 00:03:32.780 align:middle line:84% Some become lawyers; others shoulder family farms. 00:03:32.780 --> 00:03:37.040 align:middle line:84% Still, others sell the family farms to local speculators. 00:03:37.040 --> 00:03:40.730 align:middle line:84% We never knew their names but sun-red and neckish, 00:03:40.730 --> 00:03:43.580 align:middle line:84% their faces grimace from across the barricades 00:03:43.580 --> 00:03:49.640 align:middle line:84% as we chant Huelga, Huelga, Huelga!" 00:03:49.640 --> 00:03:51.290 align:middle line:90% And then two more pieces. 00:03:51.290 --> 00:03:53.150 align:middle line:90% "The Farmworkers' Daughters. 00:03:53.150 --> 00:03:56.120 align:middle line:90% Khaki, everywhere khaki. 00:03:56.120 --> 00:03:57.590 align:middle line:90% Not us, boy. 00:03:57.590 --> 00:03:59.840 align:middle line:84% Our dads wear khaki in the fields. 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:03.020 align:middle line:84% Khaki cruddy with sucked plums and peaches, 00:04:03.020 --> 00:04:05.570 align:middle line:84% khaki topped with white dress shirts 00:04:05.570 --> 00:04:09.650 align:middle line:84% pressed by mouthy daughters who iron their hair so it lies 00:04:09.650 --> 00:04:12.740 align:middle line:84% like banners over shoulders-- daughters who 00:04:12.740 --> 00:04:17.300 align:middle line:84% swear to wear mini skirts and tight, tight dresses when we're 00:04:17.300 --> 00:04:18.140 align:middle line:90% out of sight. 00:04:18.140 --> 00:04:19.879 align:middle line:90% We'll be so out of sight." 00:04:19.879 --> 00:04:22.970 align:middle line:90% 00:04:22.970 --> 00:04:24.380 align:middle line:84% And the last one from the series, 00:04:24.380 --> 00:04:27.500 align:middle line:90% I'll read "The Girlfriends." 00:04:27.500 --> 00:04:29.990 align:middle line:90% "Rosie/I got pregnant. 00:04:29.990 --> 00:04:35.190 align:middle line:84% Her/my lover swore it wasn't his/their fault. 00:04:35.190 --> 00:04:40.100 align:middle line:84% It was cinco de mayo, 16 de septiembre and I/we/she/he/they 00:04:40.100 --> 00:04:40.970 align:middle line:90% broke loose. 00:04:40.970 --> 00:04:43.100 align:middle line:84% Loose hips whipping through cumbias, 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:45.680 align:middle line:84% ankling through rancheras, hips grinding 00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:47.540 align:middle line:84% through night-long sets of lovemaking, 00:04:47.540 --> 00:04:50.670 align:middle line:84% the intensity of a rolling tent revival. 00:04:50.670 --> 00:04:54.500 align:middle line:90% Rosie/I had a miscarriage/baby. 00:04:54.500 --> 00:05:00.100 align:middle line:84% Rosie/I thought I/she was lucky." 00:05:00.100 --> 00:05:04.000 align:middle line:90%