Teatro Campesino!

San Juan Bautista

Grace The one in charge! Works at the Mission Bakery
Jeremiah 22 wandering musician
John 24 engaged to a photographer, expert rapper
Cody 19 living in Oregon
Dorothy 26 put us up for the whole time, and she has three great kids:
Adrian 11
Anaise 6
Atlixcatzin 4 aka Ali
Anna 27 roommate of Dorothy
And her three kids, whose names are lost on a piece of paper somewhere! There are also a lot more people involved in this dinner, and my notes are somewhere I can’t place. Grace has 13 brothers and sisters! I can only remember Paula, who worked at the bakery, and gave us delicious apricot tarts.

The whole three days spent with the Serna family has been educational. I suppose every dinner has and will be. But this was cultural education. I had an amazing time.

The life I live in the city makes me skinny as a pencil. I squeeze down streets full of traffic, foot traffic, bicycles, cars and trucks. We have so many things going by us it shaves us down to the size of messenger bicycle tires. We are constantly threading ourselves through doorways, the apartment is small and the sidewalk where the children play is four feet wide.

Arriving in San Juan Bautista, the land opened up, the hills were soft and green, there weren’t houses on the crest, and the people themselves began to soften. The skinny rails of San Francisco weren’t to be found. I suppose when you stop focusing on yourself and begin to look at your family, your whole body changes. It was a fantastic thing to walk into this home on San Antonio Street. The living room was huge, and the kitchen had three long tables with red tablecloths, balloons floated along the ceiling with curled ribbon dangling from below. I thought it was someone’s birthday, but was told it was for me. There were a lot of woman here. Woman and children. This is a culture shock to an only child who lives with twenty somethings in San Francisco. It was going to be a very comforting three day stay. It was supposed to be one day, but the kids were so cute and Dorothy and Grace kept feeding us, and we didn’t want to ever leave. It was a land of fertility. I understand why men carve sculptures of hips and breasts, thighs, and all that makes a woman, and all that a woman creates. They deserve lots of praise.

The family structure was ruptured, in a way, with the two women, Dorothy and Anna, raising children without their husbands. But there was so much support with Dorothy’s extended family: Grace, the grandmother, and two uncles, Jeremiah and John, were around. A few great aunts, and friends. Cousins. There was so much food, tortillas with everything. Salsa verde and pork in a giant pot roasting, chicken and onion and celery in a pan, on the burner, two types of rice, handmade tortilla shells, hand crafted taco shells made by dipping store bought corn tortilla’s in hot corn oil on the stove top. These are things I’ve never done. The hand made tortillas were a learning experience. After you roll the dough out you set it down on the skillet, but it must be done in such a way that it lays completely flat, yet it must be done quickly, in one smooth drop. I left my finger prints on a few, which is taboo. It happens when you drop it out of your hand after holding it in your palm with your fingers spread. It creates a convex outline that heats quicker since it has come in contact first with the hot surface. So check your tortillas for finger prints burned in.

Is San Juan Bautista a small town? Here’s a relative by marriage to Grace. I was standing under a porch of what looked like an abandoned building on a side street downtown, when a door opened, and this man walked out. His name was James, and he had a wonderful brogue. He is Irish by way of Scotland. It was a wonderful moment when he invited me in for a tour of his historic home. Made of inch thick redwood boards set on end and battened, it looked like a one story old time row house.

Here’s a picture of his living room. He totally amazed me with stories and the whole vibe of the place was intense and beautiful.

Here is Caleb, a soundman who came down from the Bay Area to help Clark on the documentary. He is 19 and just moved from Texas to California. You can see him here looking out across the San Andreas Fault, which is where two plates are hitting and cause a lot of earthquakes. It is completely flat, which is strange.