⋅ MY LOS ANGELES ⋅

Los Angeles is not the city of my birth, but it is my city. I came for my own reasons and didn’t think I’d stay. But it has become the place I call home because I have lived most of my life here.

Los Angeles is so many different things to so many different people. It is the land of pleasant weather, a place where the mountains meet the ocean, creating beautiful natural landscapes. Los Angeles is Hollywood, the place people came if they wanted to be in the movies. It is also, like most big cities, home to so many people who live far away from the ocean and know no movie stars. But they came to this city for their own reasons and have made this city their home.

Los Angeles may not be perfect, but, like an imperfect house, it becomes a home when it is filled with the people you want to be with. The people I meet pique my interest and I want to know more about them. What were their lives like before we met? What brought them here or made them stay?

My adopted city is like a kaleidoscope. We are all those fantastic pieces of brilliant glass, shaken into our own unique design by the human circumstance, each one different from the other. In this offering I try to show how these glass pieces come together to create the individual pattern of our lives.

Despite the sun and the ocean, this city is, by no means, an easy place to live. So why do people decide to stay here? They are happy to share their stories with me and I hope you will read them and get to know these people who make my city the place it is.

⋅ BOBBY'S STORY ⋅

Bobby is a blues sax player, singer and composer who grew up in Oakland and came to Los Angeles because, at the time, this was the happening place for music. He is well-known and regarded on the blues circuit in Los Angeles and has his name on the Blues Walk Of Fame In Oakland. You can find him on: www.bobbyhurricane.com

Bobby grew up in the “ghetto” in Oakland and feels that seeing and experiencing so much violence in his community scarred him. He credits his Jehovah’s Witness grandparents, who raised him, for keeping him straight. He says: “Better things were expected of me and that’s what kept me right. I was an absolute square.”

He kept himself straight–or as he calls it “square”–through his music and through his love of reading. Bobby started playing music early, and was part of many bands in the Oakland area. His mother had subscribed to the Jazztone record club and they would get records regularly. That is how he got introduced to Charlie Parker. He went to UC Berkeley to study music, but soon found that he was not able to support a family on music and so he began to teach in the day and perform his music at night. This is what he had to say about that:

“I had to substitute teach because I had a family to support and bills to pay. I was determined to keep my kids out of the ghetto. That’s what my schooling was all about. I wanted to make enough money to live in a good neighborhood so they would not be exposed to the ghetto life that I grew up in.”

I met Bobby when we both taught at John Adams Middle School in South Los Angeles. Since retiring as a teacher in 2009, Bobby went back to a full-time musical life for himself with the help of his new wife Retha who took over as his manager and publicist. Every musician needs a strong manager. Bobby needs Retha, for in this world, talent isn’t always enough to get people to know you.

Bobby likes to talk about how he learned music and the real way to play jazz and the blues:

“Let’s say you like Coltrane. Until you sit down with Coltrane and listen the hell out of him, pick up some of his licks, you’re not going to get to the stuff. Called coppin’. Coppin’ is when you listen to somebody and learn how they play. That’s how you really learn. And most musicians aren’t going to tell you that.

You got to sit down with a record like Junior Walker—I mean I’m talking rhythm and blues now.

You remember Shotgun? (Singing) “ Shotguuun, shoot him ‘fore he run now. Do the jerk baby. Pum pum pa lo dara dara dada. Darada da da dera da aa rada dera.”

I had to learn all that, its like learning a language. People can learn from a book but if they’re not exposed to the real people talking it’s just not going to be right. Now most of the musicians I’ve been around, they couldn’t read music, they didn’t know anything about theory but they could play—all ear learned.

If you really want to play, you got to pick someone you love. But you got to love someone, otherwise its going to be hard. And you got to listen to that shit over and over.”

You are welcome to read Bobby’s full story here.

BOBBY

EARLY LIFE—MOTHER AND MY GRANDPARENTS

I was born in Oakland. My mother, Mildred Elaine Evans Spencer, had 3 children.

I moved in with my grandparents early. They were from Louisiana/Arkansas. They lived in a town called Junction City. Half of it was in Louisiana and half of it was in Arkansas. But they were very stable, very strict.

My grandmother, Annie Mae Evans, was very affectionate. When I was little, my grandfather, August Evans (Little Bud), used to sneak out with me to San Francisco, to the zoo or to ride horses—something fun.

Actually, my grandmother was the boss, not my grandfather, but she wouldn’t admit it. The man’s supposed to be the head of the family, but he wasn’t qualified. He came up illiterate. He couldn’t read. She taught him how to read.

She had taught him back in Louisiana/Arkansas—whatever it was. But she taught. It wasn’t like she had a degree. She would go to teacher school one year and teach the next, then go back the next year.

And she loved the dictionary. Would look up words all the time. And when I was going to Merritt College, she knew I had to have good dictionaries there, she asked me would I buy her a dictionary, which I did.

She was very domineering but she was sweet. She gave me a lot of affection, not like my brother and sister. My brother and sister didn’t get that same affection, and that’s probably what caused their lives to be so screwed up.

I remember I almost got into a fight one day, almost beat this boy up—that’s the atmosphere I was living in. All the kids were out there, school was out. My grandma was out pioneering—Jehovah’s Witness have what they call pioneering, getting so many hours in there in a month. She asked me where we were at—KICKED MY ASS. She had one of those, what you call, ironing cords—knocked the shit out of me.

You know who we were afraid of? My grandfather! He would just threaten for a long time. He would say, “I’ll snatch you bald-headed”.
Then after a while you were bad, he had a razor strap. He would sharpen that thing. You only got it from him one or two times a year. But boy! You could feel it– that’s the way we were raised as kids.

He was a nice man. Very warm, didn’t talk much, but we’d like it when he told us one of his stories. Like when somebody was bothering him in the South in those days. He told us how he took them out. He didn’t talk a lot in those days but he’d tell us his stories.

We liked when he’d tell us stories. The day he killed a panther, He had a big scar right here on his hand and he’d tell us how he got that.

My grandma talked all the time. She was very talkative and people really respected her. But she was a nag. That’s how she got her way all the time. Gosh, she was a nag. People loved her though.

I had a friend from school, white boy, and he’d come over to my house all the time to play. We lived in the Alameda Projects then, and there were whites and blacks– but it was segregated.

Then one day, when I was in first grade, my white friend invited me over to his house, but his parents would not let me in. That’s the way they treated us. They had me waiting outside for a long time and they finally came out and told me they wouldn’t let me in.

But my grandmother, she still welcomed him to our house. He was one of my buddies, you know, and my grandmother—it was very racist back in those days-she didn’t respond to racism like you would think. In other words, she was very popular with white people, because she didn’t hold any kinds of grudges about that.

    JEHOVAH’S WITNESSES

They were very strict. We couldn’t dance, I remember they had dances at school. She wouldn’t let me go anywhere. How do I explain it? Their religion was very strict.

And when I got to be 9, well it started when I was 8, the Jehovah’s Witnesses trained you how to speak, teaching the scriptures. They called it “talks”. I remember the first one was about Moses. My grandmother wrote it all out. Everything I had to say, when I had to give a gesture, everything. When I got older I had to do my own. I was a good speaker though.

And I could really articulate. I don’t know how old I was when I had to make my own. Can’t remember any of my speeches either. But they would teach you how to gesture, how to make your voice go up and down. They would teach you all of that. I’m sure it helped with my teaching later on because I did it for so many years.

They taught you how: When you first get up there, don’t say anything. Pause and look out at your audience. They just taught you all kind of stuff. Oh yeah. They taught you how to articulate, make it louder, softer. I don’t know how to explain it, but they taught you the basics of how to talk to people—public speaking.

MY MOTHER

My grandmother kept me on the right path. Had I been with my mother, I would probably have been insane. My mother acted like she wished she didn’t have us. She had 3 children, all from different fathers. I think this lack of love is what destroyed my brother and sister in adulthood. I escaped that because I had gotten a lot of love from my grandparents and stepdad. For awhile we all lived together.

I know my stepfather loved me more than he loved his own son. But soon after we moved in with them, I saw my stepfather beat my mother one night, it was so bad that it has traumatized me to this day. He left and soon after that my mother moved us all to the Encinal Projects.

I wanted to live with her to escape the confines of the Jehovah’s Witnesses. My mother was unstable. She wasn’t an alcoholic at that time, but she was drinking a lot. It was constant men at that apartment. This is where she fell for the love of her life, a man we all hated. His name was Roosevelt. In retrospect, he was hostile toward us kids. We hated his guts. But looking back he wasn’t that bad. Later in life we got to know him. He and my brother Harry were in prison together.

I only lived with my mother one year. I went back to the other projects, the Estuary (The Alameda Projects), and lived with my grandparents. It wasn’t long before my mother, Harry and my sister Sharon all moved back in with my grandparents.

We hadn’t been back there for hardly any time before we all moved to Oakland. I was eleven, in sixth grade, and went to school at Manzanita Elementary. It was very white, very segregated there. I had some white friends, but same problem, I couldn’t go to their house.

Eventually, the neighborhood started changing and getting poorer and more dangerous. When black families move in there, the whites move out and the blacks are going to get those places.

I DISCOVER MUSIC

This was when my mother bought records from a record club and I would listen to them. That’s how I was introduced to Charlie Parker—I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of him. And all kinds of musicians.

They would send us every kind of record and that’s how I heard music. My mother loved music. And she would sing around the house. I have come to appreciate my mother more in the past few years. I realize now that it was her interest in jazz and putting us into the JazzTone Record Club that set me on the path to being a musician.

I had one year to go in elementary and the next year was junior high. That’s when, in 7th grade, the music teacher, Miss Margaret Spiller came by. She was a little lady, a good teacher. She went around the room recruiting for the band. She tested your ear. She played something on the piano to see if I could hum it. I passed that. I wanted to play sax but they only had one sax and a boy had already claimed that. So she said, “Play clarinet. It will be easier to play sax if you know how to play clarinet.”

It turned out to be true. And she sent a note to my mother saying I was very talented and I should take music lessons. So I took lessons at Best Music Class. I played clarinet for a year and then I played a C-melody sax (somewhere between a tenor and alto).

My teacher at Best Music arranged music for Arthur Godfrey and soon he told my mother I needed my own horn.

LIFE IS NOT EASY

Looking back, I find I had forgotten how dangerous life in the ghetto was. We were new living there and we didn’t know anyone.

One time we went down to the playground before school started, I was about nine years old. There was a gang of kids down there and a little guy called Bo Wheat started an argument with me about something. He slugged me and I slugged him back and knocked him down. Then the whole gang came in on me. A very dark kid nicknamed Wicky and Bo Wheat’s brother, a light skinned kid, both started in on me. All of them. They beat the shit out of me. Harry and Sharon were helpless and standing there crying.

After a while, they got tired of beating on me, or actually I think some grownup came through the park and told them to leave me alone. We went home – I looked horrible – lips all swollen up. Later on, all these people became my friends. Termite, Bo Wheat, Wicky – everybody had a nickname. Not me – I was called Robert. But when, later, the white kids started calling me Bob that name stuck.

I’M A SQUARE THEN I MOVE OUT

Better things were expected of me and that’s what kept me right. I was an absolute square. I remember a girl, I must have been in 11th grade. She was very pretty but she was a grade ahead of me. But she offered me sex and I was so innocent, I told her, “I can’t do that!”

When I was 15 or 16, the head of the church offered to let me run one of the study groups they had all over town. By then I was through with them. I couldn’t do that anymore. I couldn’t go door to door.

I had a girlfriend and she was no Jehovah’s Witness. What had happened, she was just crazy about me and I didn’t like her. And for almost the whole school year, I would avoid her and she knew it. But she was just in love. Towards the end of the school year, I started liking her and she asked me to walk her home and I walked her home even though I wasn’t supposed to. In fact one of my songs—that’s where I got the words from. Because she would kiss me.

I didn’t know how to kiss nobody!! I lost a couple of girlfriends because I didn’t know how to kiss ‘em. So I was square as you could be. Then as I got older, I didn’t want the boys to know that I hadn’t had sex because they’d had it. And they would ridicule me. I didn’t have sex till I was 20. I was told by the Jehovah’s Witnesses that I wasn’t supposed to have sex till I got married. They kept me square.

And the girl that I had sex with—remember I told you my mother had an apartment building and I was living there. It was an old Victorian house that had been made into apartments, and I lived in what would have been the attic. The girl’s name was Joanna, and I didn’t like her that much anyway. But she liked me. So I saw it as chance to stop being a virgin.

LIFE IN THE GHETTO CAN CATCH UP BUT I STAY SQUARE

I always had depression and anxiety attacks. It started when I was 16 and I got a therapist. But it stuck with me way long. Growing up, it was a tough place to live, almost everyday I was scared. You could get beat up. That’s how it is. I started boxing at 17 to keep the bullies off me, but my younger brother, Harry, was a lot better than me. He was Diamond Belt champion for California 5 years in a row.

So how did I keep from getting hooked on heroin and ending up in a life of crime? I went over to my brother Harry’s apartment one day. My girlfriend, Carlena, had broken up with me and I was very despondent and doing a lot of drinking.

Harry had some brown Mexican heroin laying around the apartment and I asked if I could have some. At first. he agreed. Then he thought about it and changed his mind – he told me he didn’t want me to go that route. I was kind of a square. Maybe he wanted to keep it for himself.

Most of my friends were square – guys who didn’t get in trouble. I never hung around with thugs, except for Josef who was my white friend. When I first met him we were both 11 years old. I met him on the playground and he didn’t speak English much at that time. He spoke French. But we got along great and became good friends. He was always in trouble. He became a bank robber and several times he asked me to drive the getaway car for him, but I never did. He’d disappear for a while in some prison then show up again. But I guess my squareness and desire to keep going to school kept me out of this.

I would go to the library to read. After I first went there, from that day on, I just lived in the library. That’s where I first found the Somerset Maugham books. Every kind of book.

I was depressed so much and the books helped me get out of that. I have a curious mind, even now, and so that was a big part of it. I used to read all day.

My grandmother would bring me lunch. You might have thought it was a job. I’m serious. I would read all day and this eye, I’m getting blind in it. Because I would get sleepy at night, I’d be so interested at night at what I was reading, I would lay on the pillow with one eye open and just read and read and read.

I was an avid reader until about 18 or 19 (years old). Then I decided I’d read too much and I stopped reading. But I didn’t completely stop reading.

MY JOB

You know, what I did, I was working part-time in the post office. After several months, they were eliminating that position and they said, “You could go work full time”. You know, mailman or whatever.

I was happy in the part time job but I was miserable in the full-time job. I used to go buy a half pint of Jack Daniels every night and I’d be intoxicated in there. I just didn’t want to do it. Then I got in trouble and I got fired.

ALWAYS MUSIC

But the rhythm and blues got me away from the ghetto life. I got into some bands and played the rhythm and blues scene and then I didn’t need a therapist.

I was with Marvin Holmes and the Uptights. He got the best gigs in Oakland. There was a club owned by a professional basketball player. Big, tall light-skinned black guy. He booked well-known people. He was coming along, he was pretty hot. My friend Rabu, (Buford) hooked me up with this guy. He was well-known but he couldn’t write music. So I would write his music for him, that introduced me to studio music. Sly Stone came into one of our gigs riding a big dog. So many things happened, I can’t keep up with them.

I guess, in high school I played in jazz band, we used to call them stage bands. I was in the sax section. I’m still in touch with friends from there. Now some of them died, some have a bad heart. We also had a basement band and Paul Jackson was in that band. He later became Herbie Hancock’s bass player and lived in Japan and got hooked on drugs.

His sister, Joyce, was nuts about me, but I was older and I liked the older girls. Joyce played flute and went to a famous music college back East and played in the Philharmonic with Leonard Bernstein. But last I heard, she came back and wasn’t doing so good.

Anyway, I can show you in The Real Book (standards for musicians), some of the most popular tunes by Herbie Hancock, he’s got writing credit there. Paul was just 16 then, so me and Jamie were older and were leaders of the band

DOOWOP AND LOS ANGELES

I was in a doowop band in high school called The Enchanters, running parallel to the school band. One of my friends who just died, he was the lead singer in the band. We sung everywhere — sororities, on campus.

There was a girl who really loved the group and her mother was an agent and she wanted her mother to hear us. Her mother really liked us, so we used to go up to Oakland Hills every Saturday and practice. She was going to polish up our choreography and everything.

But us, we would come close to something good and lose it. So the band wouldn’t rehearse and she dropped us. It broke our hearts.

Other than that, we formed another group. There was Otis who just died. And Harvey who had his own business as a carpenter. There were four of us and we came to LA.

So we went down there, and in a short time we had an offer of a contract from a producer. The guy was on Sunset and Vine. The guy had a small operation, really only had one artist. And we sung for him. He really liked us and he offered us a contract.

We didn’t know—we were just ignorant. So me and this other guy, Buford, looked down the street and saw Capitol Records. So we decided to walk down there with our contract. We wanted to compare—it was the silliest thing.

And the woman at the reception when you walked in, I think her name was Johnny, we told her our problem. And she said there were 2 rhythm and blues producers, Adam Ross and Jack Levy. She said, “It’s lunchtime right now, you come back after lunch and you can probably meet him.”

Just before we were about to go out, Adam Ross came walking down the stairs. She said, “Oh, there’s Adam Ross”. So we went and introduced ourselves to him and told him what we were looking at and he wanted to hear us. He told us to come back after lunch. They were on the 7th floor and Jack Levy was there too. So we sang—we always sung A Cappella—we sang one of our favorite songs to him. They liked it, but they said, “Before we offer you a contract, we got to hear you on recording. Some people can sing but they don’t come through on recording.”

When he told us that, we said, “Well, forget about it. We got a contract already”. So they said. “Wait a minute”, and they gave us a contract.

Talk about kids that didn’t know anything. We were down here 3 months and we had a lot of fun. But the boys started to fade out and wanted to go home. I stayed a little while after they left and then I came home to Oakland too.

MUSIC, GIRLS AND FAMILY

I had a friend from high school, name was Jake, a Mexican kid. And he was hangin’ out in the Latin scene, you know, mambos and all that kind of stuff. So he introduced me to a guy named John Thomas who had a Latin band. I got the gig, played quite a while with the Latin band.

By now I was a real gigolo. Once I was in that band, the girls were coming down on you like rain. I’d never had an experience like that before.

My first wife, I met her there. I did her wrong so much, she paid me back later. I started playing in a club in East Oakland, I went to a lot of clubs. She is the mom of my second daughter.

I married her, but she paid me back for all that fooling around I did. She ran off with another tenor player. He was more famous than I was. I found out because my 3-year-old daughter told me. “I told Gloria not to do it. I told Gloria not to do it”.

The little girl stayed with her grandmother, they had a home, they were very stable. Her grandfather was nuts about her. I would take her and her older sister to the zoo together, so they’re friends now. My first daughter, I got together with her mother, but I was such a gigolo, I couldn’t stay faithful to anyone.

I would come to LA a lot for the music scene. I thought at that time I could do more in LA. Eventually, I got a job in LA driving a bus and moved my wife Carla and my son Bob down here. But I didn’t like it. I was about to buy something once, and I realized I would be stuck in this if I bought it. I didn’t want to be driving this bus for the next 10 years or more cuz I owe bills.

So, eventually, I moved back to Oakland. I would come down to LA for 3 months and then go back to Oakland. I realized I needed to be in school. I had dropped out of high school, and whenever I looked for a job, they always had some requirement and I didn’t have any requirement.

So I decided that I would get an AA degree. I wasn’t thinking about 4 years or anything. But once I got in there, I really started studying hard.

By then I had my son Gus along with Bob.

                                                                     BERKELEY

I went to UC Berkeley.  You see, Johnny Talbert, the guy I was in the band with, brought a sightreading book and asked me to help him with it. I didn’t know he was enrolled in Berkeley. I thought he was doing what I was doing.

A bit later, I found out that he was a full- fledged student and I was stunned. I was like, “What?” And he had been going to a community college, but it had been quite a while before he transferred to Berkeley. He’s a jive mofo in certain ways.

The reason I ended up going there, because one day I went up there to find him to hang out and I couldn’t find him, but I knew the admissions person. Stacey was his name and I knew where he was. He was the guy that evaluated you. So I went up to the admissions office and I said, “Stacey, where’s Johnny at?” He didn’t know where Johnny was but he said, “Aren’t you about through with community college?” I said, “Yeah, I graduated”. So he said, “Why don’t you apply up here?”

It was like, every counselor I talked to said, “Oh you can try but you can’t get in there”. That’s all I ever heard from counselors and other people at community college. So that was the first big change. I said, “Really?” And he said, “Go ahead and apply”.

So I went to apply, and there was this black girl that saw me and she sat across from me at the other table and she started looking through my records to evaluate me to see if I could get into University. And I was scared. She was doing the evaluating and I was just sitting there looking at her. She said, “Sit back and relax”.

Then at a certain point she said—I don’t remember her exact words, but she told me that I could go in, I was accepted. So that was stunning to me. I had friends who went there, just various friends I knew. It was the college in the neighborhood, but I didn’t see myself there. They gave us an orientation and, oh my God, it was a completely different world.

And here I was, a little boy from the ghetto. Another boy had also come there from community college, so we got there at the same time. He told me he had to get a counselor cuz the orientation had screwed him up so bad.

It was amazing. The orientation, I don’t know how to explain it. Many people who have an education come from an educated life. But when you come from the ghetto and you go to the University and you see all they know—it was just incredible.

A NEW WORLD

I felt I entered into a new world, a place I never knew existed. Might as well have took me to Mars or something, you know. But, anyway, I had the orientation. I got through. Spent a few years there.

Music major there was one of the hardest majors. But I loved it. They had stuff there that I would have never imagined existed, just speaking of music. I had about a year of Composition, I can’t even explain to you what they taught me. Now it seems so passe, so routine. I don’t even know how to explain it.

I remember, a few years ago, I was doing a record with Andreas, I call him my protégé, he’s right about 35/36 now. And he just stretches out, stuff that sounds like he’s playin’ out of key, you know 20th century stuff, and he goes back all the way to the blues.

So he wrote this song, “Sinking Above”. In a lot of ways he wrote it for me. He has this beginning horn part and the ending, where I solo, and, I don’t know what it was, but it was a dissonant thing, and I had to play out of some weird scale. And what helped me was what I learned at Berkeley.

What I did was that I created a little motif, I played some little thing, then I played it somewhere else. So I created a story, a kind of arc. It starts more simple with more spacing and it builds at a higher pitch. I didn’t even know that I could do that. But they taught me.

You could give me two notes. maybe a triad. I could probably, if I had the time and energy, create you a thousand themes out of that from the techniques that they taught. They were just amazing.

Dr. Tucker—I just remembered his name! They had a Student Union, some student dues paid for it and they had a large building and two or three jazz bands– not for credit.

Stacey, who I was telling you about,  told Dr. Tucker who was the head of this, that I was so bad. Dr. Tucker had been trying to get me to come to the band for 2 or 3 years, but I told him, I was so busy just trying not to flunk those classes, I was studying all the time.

So after almost 2 years I said OK, so I went in the band. There were 3 bands, the best, the second and third. He put me, of course, in the top band, and I was astounded at how good those white boys could read. Oh, God! Us blacks could never read music like that. I always said some of them could read flyshit backwards. And so I went through that band for about a year.

GRADUATION

Anyway, after about 3 years I finally graduated and I had no job in mind. And I knew I should be working on a job, but I had nothing.

I met some guys. I met some of them at Berkeley. I was musical, not political. So some of my friends, if you want to call ‘em friends—did you ever hear of Stokeley Carmichael? They were socialists then. So these guys were part of Stokeley Carmichael’s party and they had been trying to recruit me. But it wasn’t me, I was musical, not political. But we were still friendly. So I said, “Well, I’ll just ask one of these guys cuz they’d already graduated.”

I was talking to one of them, I can’t remember his name. and he said I could be a substitute teacher in Oakland. They said go down to Oakland School System, they’ll hire you with a 4-year degree.

I ended up calling them and going down there and getting hired to be a substitute. You could teach with a degree and you had to be working on a credential, so I did that for almost 4 years up there.

I had to substitute teach because I had a family to support and bills to pay. I was determined to keep my kids out of the ghetto. That’s what my schooling was all about. I wanted to make enough money to live in a good neighborhood so they would not be exposed to the ghetto life that I grew up in.

I substitute taught for 4 years. Substitute teaching was miserable and I found out it was better to have a steady job, not substitute. Then I started coming to LA cuz I got frustrated being up there. That place was driving me crazy. I was sick of Oakland.

When I was in LA earlier, I taught for 2 years there and taught a second grade class, but then I decided to go back to Oakland. I knew the best way I could go back to Oakland was to enter a teaching credential program. So I went to get a teaching credential at Berkeley.

I was playing the whole time I was teaching, I had a fairly regular stream of gigs. The whole time I was still playing with Johnny Talbert. I played with him for 12 years. By now I had Carla (my wife), my sons Bob and Gus, and Carla was pregnant with our third child.

Jimmy McCracklin rented us a little house and I went with substitute teaching and playing music whenever I could. Jimmy was a very talented blues player. All the people I played with were international. They were on the level, they were hired to draw people. I worked at Eli’s Mile High Club.

BACK TO LOS ANGELES

So after I was done, LA Unified was recruiting and I got a job with them. It took me a long time to adapt to LA. It was a hard life for me. It made me grow up, though. Because in Oakland, my family would spoil me. They were always there for me—I’d need a little money, they’d give me some money.

I’m glad I stayed in LA. I needed to be somewhere I needed to really take care on my own. By then I had left Carla, the kids were with her. I went to court to try and get them back and I got them. I was a single parent. When they were 15 and 16 they decided to go back to her.

I’ve been in Los Angeles for 30 years now, I think. Oakland has changed now. There’s something quaint about it up there, but there’s something down here that’s missing up there. It’s the MUSIC. It’s GIANT. We talk on the phone and they say there’s nothing goin’ on up here. LA is the music mecca. I had to stay.

In Oakland, there are people up there that can really play and know music, but the rank and file–most of them can’t read music at all. And what they do is, they play by ear. I did both. For instance, I like to create songs. When they record, they like to record an old BB King tune or an old something that’d already been out.

In Los Angeles, I used to play Babe and Ricky’s but I couldn’t do it full time because I was teaching. After I retired, I went back full time. Then I played different places like Lucy’s 51, The French Quarter, The Seabird Jazz Lounge.

I GROW AS A MUSICIAN

At the beginning way back, I would feel nervous. I’ve been in front of people so long that…only times I felt nervous was when I thought I was going to play like shit. That’s kind of what musicians go through. Sometimes you feel like you played great and sometimes you feel like you played like shit.

You might be playing good, everybody knew you’re playing great but you didn’t know. Hearing recordings of myself, it sounds pretty good. I say “That’s me?”. I’ve conquered it in certain ways that even when I feel it, I don’t feel it. I guess it’s like a fighter—he knows he’s good and he has some kind of anxiety, but it doesn’t dominate you anymore.

I went to play at Rose Gale’s for First Monday Jazz to learn to play better on the changes. That terrified me but I went there to learn to play on the changes. My start had been in jazz but I didn’t really consider myself a jazz player.

Jazz players have a thousand different chords going through different keys. Blues players have 3 chords. You’re on the C chord then you have the F chord then you go back to the C chord then you go to the G chord, the V then the IV then the I. Almost every blues song is basically that.

So when I got the gig at Pips in 2017, I was nervous on that gig, because of where it was, with a more upscale audience. I thought I had to play soft and not show up with the blues funk. Then after a few times playing there I found that they loved that. So then I cut loose.

One night Stevie Wonder came in there, also that actor you always saw on TV. When you’re there anybody can walk in there, it was a black elite club. I was used to playing in rowdier places, The French Quarter, Babe and Ricky’s, Lucy’s. A good solid year at Pip’s, I was playing better but I couldn’t tell. I did that gig for 3 or 4 years.

HOW DO YOU GROW AS A MUSICIAN?

Listen, musicians don’t teach you their tricks. I tell a lot of people—see first of all, if you come to an average musician and you ask him about something, he’s not going to tell you the true tricks. In other words, you could go to that piano and a jazz teacher will teach you all the scales and chords. But you can learn all that and you will still sound like shit.

Until, you…Let’s say you like Coltrane. Until you sit down with Coltrane and listen the hell out of him, pick up some of his licks, you’re not going to get to the stuff. Called coppin’. Coppin’ is when you listen to somebody and learn how they play. That’s how you really learn. And most musicians aren’t going to tell you that.

Like I had a teacher in San Francisco who could play his ass off, he come out of the Coltrane school. And this is standard—he was teaching me all the slick scales but when he played it—ooh it sounded good. But when I played it, it didn’t sound worth a shit. At that time– I learned that late in my musician’s life—I didn’t know you just got to cop.

You got to sit down with a record like Junior Walker—I mean I’m talking rhythm and blues now.

You remember Shotgun? (Singing) “ Shotguuun, shoot him ‘fore he run now. Do the jerk baby. Pum pum pa lo dara dara dada. Darada da da dera da aa rada dera.”

I had to learn all that, its like learning a language. People can learn from a book but if they’re not exposed to the real people talking it’s just not going to be right. Now most of the musicians I’ve been around, they couldn’t read music, they didn’t know anything about theory but they could play—all ear learned.

If you really want to play, you got to pick someone you love. But you got to love someone, otherwise its going to be hard. And you got to listen to that shit over and over.

I didn’t know how good I was. The records I made, I felt embarrassed because I’m so critical. Now that I listen to them, they’re much better than I thought they were.

Note: In 2019, Bobby had a stroke followed by other medical complications. In 2021-22 he almost died from sepsis. He is coming back from this plays everyday, getting his chops back. He is strong enough now to perform again in clubs. Jay Jackson produced this clip for YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gVTYTQuV3E

Retha has him on Instagram and Spotify where he has many, many followers. This was a recent thing he said on Facebook:

Thanks to all of you – and especially to Retha for putting me out there! I think I’m like most of us musicians – just want to know my music is being heard and enjoyed – very gratifying – especially given the fact that I’ve been pretty much out of the picture this past couple of years.

JOSEPH'S STORY . Joseph is the president and co-founder, along with Racquel Decipeda, of Hearts for Sight Foundation, a Los Angeles area based non-profit that seeks to enhance the physical, social and mental health of the visually impaired community. I met Joseph as a volunteer on one of the hikes that HFS had organized and soon wanted to learn more about him. He has a masters in social work from UCLA and lives near Los Angeles with his partner, Bernice. Joseph, like his H4S community is visually impaired.

Joseph says the following of himself:

"I had a pretty wild childhood experience filled with adversity, and what some might call turmoil, but it's shaped me to be quite a resilient person, knowing what I’ve been through growing up. It’s a story filled with triumph, resiliency and persistence to try to create something out of a life where I was dealt a pretty short hand. So when I reflect back on where I was as a youth, as a child, as a teen, as a young adult, and what had transpired, as to where I am now and how I got here, it’s quite an amazing feat."

Joseph was being raised by his grandmother, but was placed in the foster care system at the age of 5, for reasons that are not clear, except that he seemed to be reacting to a rather chaotic situation at home. He never returned to his grandmother's home till he "emancipated" from the foster care system at the age of 18. Being raised in group homes, experiencing a sense of loss and family connection, he was seen to be "acting out" and placed on strong medications at a very young age. As he grew older, his family visitations were increased, and during his teen years, he felt that he found a caring therapist who helped him to set goals in his life.

Joseph achieved the goals he set for himself. He completed high school on time, got himself off the medications and completed his final goal of making something of himself. He had a lucky break in high school, when for the first time since he was 5, he got to leave the group home and live in his own home with a former staff member who became his adoptive father.

In his lifetime, Joseph has had to deal with parents that were barely present in his life, frequent moves, growing up in group homes in the foster care system and loss of his eyesight. Through it all, Joseph has become a thoughtful, creative and caring adult who lives his life to better that of others. He says he is grateful for the opportunities presented to him and for the support of mentors such as Ed Earl and families such as the Grippos.

                                                                             

                                                                                      JOSEPH                          

                                                                                           

I was born in Lehigh, Pennsylvania in 1988. I’m a Libra born October 4th.  I had a pretty wild childhood experience filled with adversity, and what some might call turmoil, but it's shaped me to be quite a resilient person.  It’s a story filled with triumph, resiliency and persistence to try to create something out of a life where I was dealt a pretty short hand. So when I reflect back on where I was as a youth, as a child, as a teen, as a young adult, and what had transpired, as to where I am now and how I got here, it’s quite an amazing feat. But we’ll have time to get into it. 

 

                                                                                    

 

                                                                         MY FATHER

       I don’t really know much about my father. He was Jewish African American, and from what I understand, he was from the Providence, Rhode Island area where my grandfather was a Rhode Island State Trooper. My grandmother was kind of a light-skinned Jewish lady, so that’s where we get the Jewish in our family—my dad’s side of the family. I never had much of a relationship with my father. After moving out to California at a very young age, I lost contact with him. And then he passed away in 2007, but it was 8 or 9 years later that I found out.  I don’t think I ever spoke with him outside of being a young, young, young child.

 

                                                               

                                                      

                                                                              

 MY GRANDMA AND MY MOM

My grandmother  was born in Puerto Rico and migrated to New York where she had my mother. She wasn’t the most educated person and was a victim of domestic violence, constantly having to flee for her life and safety with my mother, who is her oldest child.  Because she  witnessed domestic violence in her life as a young child, she really had to grow up fast. I don’t think my mom had much of a positive childhood experience in New York of the 70s in the Queens/Bronx area .  It was a very fast paced environment just full of bad things. A lot of people trying to get by with what little means they had available to them. And so my mother and my grandma were victims of that circumstance.

Act 1 is what had happened to me growing up to the point where I became a teenager.

                                                                           MY MOM IS MIA 

My life had so much chaos in it because my mom had such a chaotic lifestyle. When I was very young, we moved from Pennsylvania to Rhode Island. While over there, when I was about 3 ½, maybe 4, my mother was gone for a very, very long time.  This is just a very faint memory that I have. I remember being in the car, waiting for my mother for a few hours, I think, with my little brother and my little sister. My brother must have been a little baby and my sister was just like a year old.  I remember sitting in the back of the car waiting for her. And my mother just never came out of the house that she was in. And after sitting there for a few hours, one of her friends took us in and we stayed there for, I want to say, a week or 2. My mom was MIA and we had no idea of her whereabouts. 

 

                                                THANK GOD FOR GRANDMA

 So the person that we were staying with in Rhode island, called my grandmother in San Diego, and said  somebody needed to come get us kids.  The lady  said she couldn’t take care of us anymore and if someone didn’t come, she was going to call CPS (Child Protective Services)” out there in the Rhode Island area. 

And so, my grandmother, and thank God for her, she sprung into action and drove her car from San Diego to Rhode Island. came and got me, my little brother and my little sister and then drove us down to Florida where she had relatives. We stayed in Florida for a couple of weeks until my grandmother was able to settle things such as getting an apartment to take us to San Diego. 

                                   

                                                                                      

WE GO TO SAN DIEGO

We traveled to San Diego with Grandma in a very, very, tiny car filled with all of our stuff and 3 kids, and we traveled like that all the way to San Diego.

I was about 4 ½- 5 years old when we moved to San Diego. Before that,  because  I didn’t have parents watching over me, no one had really taken responsibility for teaching me how to be a young child, never teaching me much about wrong from right.  A lot of times  my brother, sister and I were left on our own—throughout life prior to getting to San Diego. 

So when I got to San Diego,  I had behavior that my grandma had a hard time controlling. The only person I would listen to was my mom. And so, as I got older, my grandmother would have to say things like, “Ohh, when your mom gets here, I’m going to tell her things like you did X, Y and Z. And you’re going to get in trouble”, because I wouldn’t listen to my grandma. I knew it was just a threat because I knew my mom wasn’t around. 

 

                                                           

 

 MY MOM COMES BACK

So when my mom actually got out of, I think, jail,  she moved to San Diego with us. I was barely just turning 5. And then things got just a little bit worse, I want to believe, because she quickly got into another fast lifestyle because that’s what she knew.  And as she got into that lifestyle, got involved with the wrong people, my behavior reflected in that. 

This is how we lived together, my 2 younger siblings, my mom and grandmother. And it was nice to have my family there, but my mom wasn’t always around. She’d leave and wouldn’t come back for a couple of days, or come back late, late at night. There were instances when bad characters would be around the household and just people that were not in the best interests of us younger kids.  It just never was an environment that was good for children. 

 

 

 

 I AM TAKEN AWAY FROM MY FAMILY

As these environments became worse and worse, my behavior reflected and became worse and worse. So when I was about 5 ½, I think someone in the neighborhood must have called Child Protective Services and told on my grandma about her not being able to care for me and my other family members, my brother and sister. 

Because of an interview I had with CPS at school,  I was taken away from my entire family.  Just me!  I was stripped away from my entire family, which was kind of devastating. I remember being in the back of a black sedan. Well, first being stripped away from my grandmother, which was terrifying. I remember being taken by a social worker and an officer and being placed in the back of a sedan and staring at my grandmother through the back windows as we were being driven away. 

And that was a constant thing for me–  Waiting,  gazing out, like searching for my family. And in this particular case, I was being taken away from my family, just watching them as I was being driven away by the social worker and CPS in this black sedan. And that was  a memory that I always will have because I was heartbroken, I was just terrified. I was sad, I felt guilty. I felt all these crazy emotions like all this stuff was my fault, because I was the only one that was taken away! 

 

POLINSKY 

When I got taken away by CPS, I was placed in this temporary facility called Polinsky,  a place  where kids would go when they got taken by CPS. It’s a temporary holding place until your social workers are able to find you more permanent housing. 

I just shut down for a couple of days. I didn’t want to leave my room, didn’t want to do anything, I just got really, really depressed. But after a  week of being there, I finally came out of this depressed funk and was able to interact with the campus. The campus had a cafeteria, a basketball court, playgrounds, a pool, all of this space to play sports. I thought it was going to be temporary and I was like, “This is a fun little camp with a bunch of other little boys and we can just play and be children.” It was actually the first time that I was able to be a free kid. Of course, there was discipline and structure which I was definitely not used to, but I felt safe, I felt secure. They had an amazing cafeteria that had food that was just available. It really was a safe place to be.

 6 YEARS OLD AND I DON'T SEE MY FAMILY

And for me, I thought this was awesome until I realized that this was going to be where I was going to be for quite some time. That I wasn’t going to go to my grandmother’s anytime soon.  I was there for a while and even though it was safe, it wasn’t with my family and I would have rather been with my family. After having been there for a couple of weeks, realizing that—" OK, I’m not seeing my grandmother.” Not knowing what’s going on- “Why am I still here? How come I’m not seeing my family? Am I going to be able to live with them?”  And so, then my behavior started to go up and down.

 I MOVE TO OTHER HOMES 

I moved to 3 different homes after that until the age of 13. 

The first one, the Ranch, was in a remote area. It was like a boarding school for boys, not like a traditional foster home where you have a parent with one or more children.  I was just 5 ½ - 6 and I was amongst older kids, so that was kind of scary too. And so, yeah, I don’t really have great fond memories of that place because again, I was feeling depressed about not seeing my family. And since I got taken away, I want to say, up to this point, maybe a year, a year and ½, I never saw my family. And that was really sad.

After that, I moved  to this other group home in El Cajon. It was more like a traditional group home where you have this rotating staff. It was in a residential house and you have a roommate and it must have been a 5-bedroom house. So maybe 10 kids at that group home. 

When I was about 9, I went to another group home in Imperial Beach called the Children’s Treatment Center (CTC). It was a really nice group home on the outside. It had a pool, which was really awesome and it was a couple of blocks from the beach. Across the street was a park for playing sports where I played basketball and baseball. I was playing all these incredible sports. I stayed there till I was about 13 when I aged out.

So from the age of 5 to the age of 13, I was moved to 4 different group homes. It was hard moving constantly, and every time I moved, it was like I lost a whole group of people that I had grown up with or got the opportunity to meet and become friends with. And then I would leave them behind. I haven’t really kept in touch with them once I left them behind.  There have been some that have reached out to me from the group homes via Social Media. They’ll say, “Do you remember me?” And a lot of times I say that I really don’t. Because those times were not the best times. 

 

MY SISTERS AND MY BROTHER

I always felt like this outcast, “What did I do to not have the opportunity to live with you guys?” Because my grandmother still had custody  of my brother and my little sister. Until that wasn’t the case.  Eventually, my little brother and my little sister went into foster care, and they had their own behavioral challenges which I am not going to go into details as to what their challenges were. But, you know, they went into foster care. But, fortunately, for the 2 of them, they got to go into foster care together. 

So, they lived together, whereas I lived in group homes, not in traditional foster care. Where they had foster parents, I had staff members that weren’t able to show affection, weren’t able to hug kids. The staff wasn’t able to show any sort of remorse or love to the kids that they worked with because that blurred the boundaries between staff and child. In the group homes they never wanted any of that. They were instructed not to show affection. You couldn’t hug, couldn’t hold kids that just wasn’t part of their job. They weren’t supposed to do that stuff. 

My 3 older sisters had different fathers so they had different branches of family they could connect with and go under the kinship of. We were able to have conversations as older adults, to better understand what the circumstances were at that time that influenced those decisions that were made.  And, Thank God, we have all turned out OK.

                                                       

 

MY GRANDMA TRIES TO GET ME BACK

During this time, I didn’t know this, my grandmother was  trying to get me back. But my grandmother’s challenge was that she wasn’t a very educated person, so she was not able to understand the paperwork. She was not able to effectively communicate what her challenges were and some of the things that she needed to do to get me back. 

And so, the system failed her in a way, because they couldn’t communicate with her in a way that she could understand.  She was deemed unfit to take care of me because of her uneducated self, which was really unfortunate. This is kind of a problem we see quite a bit in Latino and Latina families. Because you get these grandmothers, who are, you know. first generation or migrant grandmothers trying to take care of their kids because their parents are not able to do so. They’re still able to parent, but they just don’t speak the language because they don’t have the formal education.

And so the reunification was a failure because of that. We never had an opportunity to live with her and that was a real bummer. But my brother and I and my sister, we really love Grandma for being there as much as she was for us. Because we know that she really tried her best. My grandmother would come and drive up and see me. She would take the bus to come see me. She did so much with so little to try to support us. And for that we’re just forever grateful, and she’s like our little queen for doing that for us.

 

 I AM STILL IN A GROUP HOME WITH VISITATIONS

And so, I continued to live in group homes. I think I was in first grade, living at El Cajon, and at this point, I was just barely starting to get visitation again with my grandmother.

When my visitations with my family were reinstated, my mom and my grandmother, whenever my mom wasn’t in prison, were able to come to that group home, and visit me. Which was nice. I had visitation with my family, my mom and my little brother and sister. They would come every so often to visit me, and it was always such a great pleasure to see my family. 

 My grandmother would try to be consistent, but for her to come see me, they would have to travel via bus and train, and I know now that it would take them just hours to come see me. 

Whenever they came, I was just so excited, from waking up on that morning, just full of excitement, full of joy and I was so happy about it, that when they came, it was just amazing, it was great, I loved it. 

 

                                                          SOMETIMES THEY WOULDN’T MAKE IT

I remember waiting for my family, looking out my window, because my room sat in this space where you could see down the street, when my family would come off the bus, so whenever they were walking, I could see them. I would sit there for hours. I didn’t want to eat, didn’t want to do anything and I was telling the group home staff members that my grandmother is coming, they’re coming, they’re coming.  And I would wait  there for hours and hours, and there was one time they came. It was some 3 hours later, they came. And I was like, “See? They’re coming, they’re here!”  I was young and I didn’t understand the concept of time and they needed to be on time for their visitation. But I was like, yeah, this is reassurance that they were going to be there when they said they were going to be there. 

 

 But there were times that they didn’t come. I’d sit at that window and wait for them, and then they wouldn’t come, they just didn’t come. It was devastating.  I would go into this super depressed state and my levels of anxiety, my depression and my explosive behavior would just come out of me and that would tear me up again.  I wouldn’t engage with anybody, I would be explosive or I’d get angry. They’d have to restrain me because I was just a harm to others, sometimes myself. I was a child, I was six years old, my whole body was like, hit things, throw things. I would have extreme temper tantrums, to the point where staff had to restrain me.

 

                                                                  MEDICATED

 I was heavily medicated  because I was dealing with so many emotions that I was not able to regulate . On psychotropics, behavioral stimulants, I had problems sleeping. I was so doped up on medicine that I had a hard time controlling my bladder throughout the night. And I had to take nasal injections to help me sleep. I was just so doped up on medication from like 6 till maybe like 14. 

 With all these medications that I was taking, I felt so aloof, my personality was almost gone, I felt lethargic all the time. I gained so much weight. My weight gain was just through the roof. Which was crazy because I was so athletic, I was quarterback for my football team, I played basketball, I played baseball, I rode my bike everywhere. But because I was taking all this medication, my weight was just through the roof. And as a kid I was on a diet. They wouldn’t let me eat seconds! I couldn’t eat any seconds! I couldn’t have extra food, I was just on this crazy strict diet. 

 

                                                                IT'S ALL OF US

It wasn’t just me and my circumstances, but all those kids that were living at group homes were all doped up. Because there is huge money that goes into medicating kids. You know, when all of these kids are on psychotropic medications, who’s getting the money from that?  It’s the psychiatrists that we were going to see every month. This psychiatrist would just pump us with medications and of course we were forced to take the medications. We’re kids! And if we don’t take the medication, we were going to be on restriction. And if we are on restriction, that means we were not going to have privileges to go play sports,  go to our pool or the beach or go ride our bikes.  You either take this stuff or these are the consequences for not taking it. So, we were forced to take them, we didn’t want to lose out.

 

                                                                    THERAPY 

 

 I remember getting psychotherapy.  When I was little, It was play therapy, I had to put stuff together in a sandbox and the therapist would take a picture. And I had to describe to her my feelings. In Imperial Beach I was older and I went to the Children’s Treatment Center (CTC) . My psychotherapy was given to me by this lady called K. I always remember her name—I hate that name.  She would flush when she was flustered, I still have this vivid image of her. She always gave me talk therapy. And I feel that in some ways she was trying to educate me on what my mom was doing, but in a way that she was trying to create these barriers between us. Because she knew—everyone knew—that I was so connected to my mom that whenever my mom did something or didn’t do something, it would affect me in some way.  

 

 MY MOTHER IS PART OF IT

My mom would come and visit me and she’d bring me gifts.   She was always well-liked by the staff members, they would love to come and see Miss Sonya come to the group home.  But other times she wouldn’t come and K. realized that my behaviors, going forward or regressing, were connected to my mom, and “When something happens to your mom, it affects you in these ways.”  My mom and I would believe that K. was trying to just separate us. And I don’t know if that was the case, but that was kind of what was going on then. 

 A NICE PERSON—JOSEPH W.

There was this gentleman I really was very, very fond of named Joseph.  I would pretend that this guy was my dad. He was this humongous dude,  a jokester. He was fun,  full of life and I loved that.  On the days  he worked at that group home, he was kind of like our dad, a big, jolly man, so full of life. So that was the guy I grew a liking to. I always wished that guy could adopt me, you know. Because I would love to be his son, he was such a sociable dude. So that was a positive, male figure I had in my life at a group home. I didn’t stay in touch with him. 

And it's just sad, because when I grew up,  I always wanted to have a foster home, foster children myself, because I know what its like to be in a foster care situation and not have the things that you need. Love, care, security, comfort. The staff is not allowed to hug you or show you any kind of physical affection. To not have those things–how detrimental it would be for any kid? Whether you’re white, black, Mexican, Chinese. Not having these things, these fundamental ingredients to childhood development, it can cause youth as they age to have such an adverse adulthood experience, and it's tied back to their childhood. 

P. GETS IN TOUCH

There was one staff member from one of the group homes that reached out to me when I started really changing my life around. In my mid-twenties, when I was laser focused on what I wanted my life to be, I became a really strong advocate for foster youth. And I was doing a lot of speeches, I was campaigning, I was helping organizations doing fundraising, like at galas doing speeches to help them raise money. And I would record them. 

And then one of the staff members named P.  reached out to me. She was basically apologetic for our treatment at CTC group home. Because she knew that the way we were being treated was not good. Like all the medications, and the things we had to do. It's like the generals having to obey orders, she was just obeying orders, but she knew in her heart that what they were doing and how they were doing it was just so wrong. And she was saying in her messages that her heart was just broken. 

 

WHO'S MAKING MONEY? 

And so, after I left that group home, aged out of that group home, things were happening there that eventually forced it to shut down. That one was shut down because of the way kids were being treated in that space. I learned that from P.  She said that shortly after I left things were starting to spiral out of control until the group home had to be shut down. Which was great because I hated K so much!! I think the guy who owned the group home was a public figure in Imperial Beach, and I gather he was using the group home as a way to create cash.

With all this money, the psychiatrists are being paid, the social workers are being paid, like all these different parties have their hands in this pot, but ultimately, the persons who are running the group home, like the head of the group home, is just generating a tremendous amount of money. And you wonder, “Are you really doing these things in the best interests of these youth? Or are you doing it in the best interests of your pocketbook?"

But for me luckily, there was Act 2 and 3.

Act 2 is that transition from that tumultuous group home experience to moving way far away across the County to Escondido, way far away from my family. From that point to my early 20s is Act 2.

 

I MOVE TO ESCONDIDO

I was removed from the Imperial Beach group home because I was 13 and I went to a group home in Escondido called Circle of Friends. And from there I went to Middle School called Del Dios. 

At Escondido, I took charge of my environment, I took charge of the opportunities to play sports. I was in regular Ed classes but I had an IEP. I had a great time, I was very active, playing sports. I remember in 7th grade, I was on 3 basketball teams. I was very athletic, I was well-liked instantly when I moved to Escondido.   

 

MY MOTHER IS GONE AGAIN AND A NEW THERAPIST

In my 8th grade, my mom went to prison for a long time. And this is really where my life started to change. When she went to prison, I realized that she was going to be there for a very, very long time and this idea that I had to be reunified with her was not going to be existing anymore. Because by the time she got out of prison, I would be 21 years old. Already, basically a young man. So it was an unrealistic expectation that I was holding on to, and once I realized that, I was really able to move forward with my life. 

And so when my mom was in prison, my new therapist and I  talked about the reality of the situation.  She said, “Joseph, this is the situation that you’re faced with. And you know, reunification is highly, highly unlikely, and if you’re going to be here and age out, what are the things that you want to accomplish while you’re living here?”  YC—that was my therapist’s name. And she was incredibly influential in my life. The best therapist a kid can ask for. In fact, she was so incredibly great, that years after I emancipated, YC was running Circle of Friends, she was like the head of Circle of Friends. And I went back in my mid-20s to share my appreciation and thanks, and, yeah, she was still the sweetest little Indian lady —I think she was Punjabi, actually.

 

                                                                             

                               

 

 

I SET MY GOALS

This lady was just incredible and really got the crux of my feelings about what I really wanted to be in life. And when she asked me the question, “What do you want to accomplish while living in this group home?”  I told her I would like to accomplish 4 things. They were really specific goals. I was an athlete so I knew about setting goals, but creating life goals was not anything that I had ever experienced. So to be able to come up with those specific things that I wanted was really profound for me at that age. YC was really instrumental because she gave me a timeline.: “What do you want to accomplish by the time you emancipate from here?” Which is senior year-18 years old, which is 4 years from now. A 4 year plan was what she was giving me. And this is what I laid out for her:

GOAL 1

 I told my therapist that I wanted to get out of special education.                                                        

Through my early years at El Cajon,  I had a hard time being successful in public education because of everything I had been through. I had temper tantrums at school. I would get in fights, I would not listen to teachers. I was just very, very explosive and public school was not a good setting for me. The public-school teachers were not equipped to deal with a child like me with depression and feelings of abandonment, which was really what I felt. Class size, kids teasing. I got into a lot of fights. And I was a big kid, so if you’re going to tease me, I’m going to beat you up.

 And so, because of that, I had to go to this private school for kids with behavioral disturbances. This place was called Hazeltine. When I was there, at Hazeltine, they had staff members that were equipped for dealing with kids who had behavioral disturbances. But they also had the educational setting that was conducive for my development.  I was always bright. I was always good at math, and I was always sufficient at my reading level for my age group. My science was, you know, sufficient. What I lacked was behavioral stability, so my educational attainment was lacking because of my behavioral disturbances. Once I became much more stable in school, and at home, I experienced a lot of great success in school. 

 In 6th grade,  I was still living in Imperial Beach at this time,  I was able to move out of Hazeltine and go back to public school.  I would have my normal math classes, English classes, science classes, whatever, but I would have the home base. I would get extra time with my teachers, some extra tutoring, opportunities to help me keep up with those courses through middle school.

Now, in 8th grade,  I was excelling academically, and I wanted to normalize myself in regards to being like my other peers. Although being in the group home did not make me feel like a normal kid, when I was in school I felt like a normal kid because I was not being reminded that I was living in a group home. I was a student in regular public education. And, being in special education reminded me that I was a little bit different and I didn’t want to be different. So I worked incredibly hard to try to get out of special education—so that was the number 1 goal that I had.

 

GOAL 2

And then the number 2 was that I wanted to get off the medications. 

 

As a testament to what a kid is doing both academically and  at home, and as progress was being maintained over an extended period of time, psychiatrists would wind down the medication. I was going to my psychiatrist for my monthly meeting. They would get my reports from my group home and they would have nothing on it.

 In group homes you’re on these A, B, Cs. If you were an A you would have more privileges than the Bs. If you were a B you would have more privileges than the C. If you were a C, you had limited privileges like going to bed early, lost allowance, things like that. You would be on restriction, there would be the 3 day freeze, where you’re on restriction for 3 days. You could get one for not making your bed. Then you’d get re-evaluated. There was even a weeklong risk–a 7 day restriction losing all privileges. This could come from getting into a fight or getting suspended from school.

 So for me they saw I was maintaining.  I said I didn’t need that medication and the psychiatrist said prove it to us that you don’t need it. So I said OK , ” Lets do what we gotta do.” 

So sophomore year I’m off the medication--my last meds! And I was doing well!

 

 GOAL 3

Another goal was that I wanted to graduate high school on time with my peers.

 I had a lot of friends that were going to go from middle school to high school from 8th grade, and I wanted to graduate on time. You know, graduation was always something that was special for me and I wanted to do it with my friends. I didn’t want to have setbacks. Every school that I went to, I always had a lot of friends. Friendships are easy for me to obtain.  As I got older and more giving, it made being friends easier. You’ve seen me when I'm out and about (with the organization he co-founded, Hearts For Sight). I’m really invested in what others are experiencing, and when I was younger, I was more concerned about what others thought about me because I was a group home kid. And so I wanted to be friends with people because friends were a way for me to cope with the crazy stuff that I had going on at home. 

I met that last goal. I ended up graduating, did the whole awards ceremony, senior nights, it was a regular high school experience. And it was incredible to accomplish that, and not only to accomplish that but to accomplish so much more. I graduated with my peers and went on to college.

 

GOAL 4

 My last goal, which was really profound for a 13 year old, was that I didn’t want to end up like my mom. 

I said I didn’t want to follow my mom’s footsteps. Because I knew she was not doing the best she could be doing to help get her family back or to get her life back in order,  that was a significant goal I had for myself. 

 

 All of us, thank God that we are all OK.  We’re not criminals, we’re not drug dealers, that we’re not in and out of prison, like my mom was, because…you know the saying “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree’' Because of my grandmother-my mom is blessed to know that her kids are fine because of my grandmother. Because a lot of families I know, whose moms have lived through what my mom has lived through, their kids are just--you know….And its unfortunate what they go through.  I know this for a fact. because the group home kids that I’ve gotten to know or stayed in contact with or friends on Social Media, like they’ll hit me up, they’ll see where my life is going, and they’ll be like, damn! I remember you when you were at the group home, but I am blessed that my life has turned out OK.  

 

MY LIFE STARTS TO CHANGE

And then from there my life really started to change. Like I know my mom wasn’t going to be a part of my life. I no longer had to hold on to the fact that we would be reunified, and then from there I was starting to live my own life, starting to take more control over what I could control. And from there life started to progress really, really well for me.  

I was playing football, I was wrestling, I was participating in all types of athletics. I was doing fairly well in school, I was never an A student by any means, but, you know, I was getting by—you know, Bs and Cs, doing what I could. Struggling because I was just newly transitioned out of special education in 9th grade when I went to high school. 

 

RETINITIS PIGMENTOSA (RP) Retinitis Pigmentosa | National Eye Institute

When I was in 6th grade,  we went on a camping trip. We went on a night time activity, and as we were all in a line walking towards the river,  I continued to walk straight into the river. And it was shocking to me because all my peers veered away from the river because they were able to see and avoid it. But I walked right into it and staff members came up to me saying, “What are you doing?” And I had no idea, I just walked right into the river, I couldn’t see it. I was so upset, I was wet, it was nighttime—I never really liked being outdoors at night, probably because I couldn’t see well. Running into the river was reassurance that something about my nighttime vision was off. And I had no idea why. I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t really articulate my experience at that time. Glasses never really helped me see better at nighttime. 

It wasn’t till I was 16 years old that I got diagnosed with RP. I was doing really well in school sophomore year, I was playing sports, but that was when I found out I had RP. That summer I was going for my annual checkup, going to my optometrist. And they told me that “Hey, you got something in the back of your eye, we don’t know what it is. We’re going to send you to a specialist to get a further opinion.” 

I was living in the group home in Escondido at that point. So I went to the specialist down in San Diego and they told me , Yeah. You have this rare disease, one in every 5000 people get it and that it's a progressive, hereditary disease that leads to eventual blindness. And they said that I had maybe 5-10 years of vision before I’d go blind. 

I was 16 years old. I’ve blown past the 5-10 years now, but it was devastating to me to hear that news. I went to my grandmother’s house, my grandmother lived down the street from that place, I went to her to find comfort. It was just terrible. I really didn’t do anything about it. Processed it, thought it would be the end of my world until time just went on. I realized that I still had a tremendous amount of vision, able to ride bikes, play basketball, and football. These were normal daily activities I was able to continue outside of my night blindness. 

 But as I am getting older, I am seeing that my night blindness is getting worse. And my overall vision is declining as I am getting older. Really since COVID, spending a lot more time on the computer. The more I look at screens and the less active I am, having to use my central acuity, I am just getting more tunnel vision. Transitioning from outside to inside, having to wear my tinted glasses. I am adapting to vision loss as my eyes change.

 

                                                                           MONROE

 

Another profound “wow” moment was when I was a sophomore. There was a group home staff member, his name was Monroe B., and he is an African American gentleman. He and I had a great relationship in terms of staff/child relationship. He was an awesome man. He disappeared from the group home and I remember telling YC, “Hey, what happened to Monroe?  I haven’t seen him in a couple of weeks, is he still working here?” And she could not tell me why Monroe was not working at the group home anymore. 

 

MONROE WANTS ME TO LIVE WITH HIM

Months went by and Monroe wasn’t there and finally YC pulled me aside. I think we were in therapy, and she told me, “Hey, what do you think about this idea of living with Monroe?” I was  16 years old, and I was like “Whaaat?” I thought that would be amazing. I would love that. I told them I would love that for many reasons. He and I had a great relationship, he was African American, which was another positive. He could identify and I could relate to him. I wouldn’t feel awkward being in his presence around other people, because we had similar pigment. 

YC told me that Monroe was participating in this program through Walden Family Service, which is a foster and adoption agency down in San Diego. And Monroe was doing this training for several months. And because he was working to be a foster parent and working to take me in as his foster child, because of the conflict of interest, he was not able to work at the group home while I was living there. I think he was working a 2nd job to support himself.

 

 I AM NO LONGER A GROUP HOME KID AND I HAVE MY OWN HOME

It was incredible for Monroe to do what he did. And he took  a significant pay cut, because he wasn’t getting paid, to  take me out of this environment he felt that I didn’t deserve to be in.  I for sure thought that I was going to be a group home kid until I graduated. Because for kids like me, young African American kids, with quote/unquote emotional disturbance issues, we don’t get fostered. We are group home kids.  

 So now, I am out of the group home, I am 16 years old, I am a sophomore in high school, and I transitioned from this group home to go live with Monroe. 

 

That summer, I was like a free kid, no longer living in the group home. My neighbor Kendu and I were just the best homies. Two young African-American kids with huge afros–it was just awesome. And so, with that freedom, Kendu and I would go ride our scooters across town to go to the YMCA, we would run  4 or 5 basketball games. Kendu’s mother, Carol, had to get herself finger printed so she could be a secondary helper and take us to school when Monroe had to work a 2nd job. 

 

I START TO LOSE WEIGHT

 And then, I kid you not, coming back, my junior year in high school, I lost so much weight, people were looking at me. They used to call me Bubba in high school because I was always such a big kid.  I lost about 55 to 60 pounds that summer. Before that,  I was wrestling as a heavyweight, 275-285 is the cutoff line.  When I came back to school,  I was like 230 lbs,  because Kendu and I were just running and playing around all summer. I didn’t even realize it till I jumped on a scale for preseason wrestling and I was 230lbs. So I ended up losing 15 lbs, this time intentionally, so I could make the 215 lb weight class. For the next 2 years after that, I wrestled at 215 and I dropped all the way down to 198. I was able to lose over 80-90 lbs. And I mentioned to you I went off that medication. What a sense of freedom!!

 I was also playing football, but we were doing a nighttime practice. I didn’t know why it was pitch black here with no lights. (It was because of the retinitis pigmentosa causing night blindness). So at that point, I said I was not going to subject myself to this football environment and tax myself.  

 Wrestling was just so much more fun, all my friends were wrestling and I just stayed with that.  It built character and resilience , it was a great situation for me. Imposing yourself physically on someone was great, because sometimes I had built up anger and emotion and I could express myself in a healthy way.

 

I MAKE THE MOST OF MY HIGH SCHOOL

My senior year was so nice. I had 4 classes and I got to leave school early, so I made my own class in senior year. I didn’t want to go home after school, because I had sports later on, so I made my own class. I took care of this kid, Josh, who had cerebral palsy. He was a kid in the special ed class at school. I’d hang out with him, feed him, take him to his class. It was me hanging out with him for 2 periods. That’s where my appreciation for working with people with disabilities came in. It was me and Josh for my whole senior year, I was helping him. 

Some people hated their high school. I loved high school. If you could go back and do something better, I don’t think there was anything I would have done differently. I was so involved, I was in the Future Farmers of America, taking care of pigs and cattle, I was in the agriculture department building gardens. I took advantage of being in school.  

 Act 3 is from 24 to the present day. That is kind of how I view my life story.

                                            

Joseph went to college and graduated from UCLA with a masters in social welfare. His retinitis pigmentosa diagnosis spurred him to help people with vision loss. He is now the president and co-founder of Hearts For Sight, a nonprofit that helps visually impaired people maintain their physical, emotional and mental well-being. 

 

REFLECTIONS

There still are a lot of adverse childhood experiences that I have to cope with and live with everyday, but, you know, I am a graduate of UCLA!! Who would have thought that growing up? When you hear what I am telling you now, UCLA would never have been in the cards. It wasn’t in my cards. 

 Looking back, being in foster care was sad but it was also the best thing that happened to me to prepare me for my adult life. Though I lost my family connections, I would not have accomplished as much as I have done today. I have better emotional balance and better relationships, I think it is so important to choose the right company to keep. 

 

 

 

 

 

HEARTS FOR SIGHT Hearts for Sight Foundation

For me, recognizing that losing my sight was an inevitable experience, knowing that I need to prepare and adjust, knowing that I could experience blindness in the future, I needed to take care of myself. I needed to have a level of self-sufficiency and productivity, and so when I was 24-25, I started to go to the Braille Institute in San Diego.

I went to be prepared. I needed to know what resources are available to the blind and the visually impaired community, and I wanted to be around other people who are adjusting to their blindness. Being in that setting, I realized that I had an ability to teach and to educate along with having a healthy lifestyle. So I started going to classes and volunteering. I helped develop a nutrition curriculum and helped in an assistive technology class where I assisted people with iPhone accessibility like Zoom and voiceover.

After spending some time at Braille, I realized that there was a void in accessible health and wellness services for the blind. It was so illuminating, so visible, just right in your face. Seeing the way people ate and the lack of physical activity. I felt the need to create a program that would break down barriers to health and wellness services to help visually impaired people with their physical and mental health. 

At the time, it was just physical health, but as I got more involved in psychology and social work, I started developing more of a mental health component. And that is where Hearts For Sight is at today, improving the physical and the mental health of blind and visually impaired people. Our outdoor programs, connecting people to nature really serve to address the mental and the physical health needs of our community.

Joseph sees himself in Act 4 of his life. He lives in the LA area with his wife, Bernice, and their 2 beagles, Frida and Zeus. He is working hard to grow and develop Hearts for Sight so that they can provide more mental health services, outings and social events for the visually impaired community.

⋅ ANA'S STORY ⋅

Ana is an immigrant who came from Guatemala, entering the US through the desert at the Southern border, and finally being led to Los Angeles. She lives in Los Angeles and has had various jobs. She worked in a sewing factory for a while and now sells fruit at the freeway entrance. She left her country because she felt that there was nothing for her there. She never had a chance to go to school, lost her parents and her brother early, leaving her and her sisters struggling to survive. She worked there, but felt it was too difficult because she was mistreated and not paid properly. There was so much sadness that she felt the only thing to do was to leave it behind her.

Ana lives with her husband and 3 children in South Los Angeles. I taught her son in middle school, and when I found out that she was illiterate, I tried to teach her to read. Her life in Los Angeles has not been easy either. With work being scarce at one point, the family has struggled to pay rent and put food on the table. At one point, they were homeless, but were able to get into a shelter that helped them get back on their feet. Yet Ana is grateful to be here. She feels that here, in the United States, people like her are valued more than they are in Guatemala. She has a chance to work with dignity and her children have a chance for a better future here. She says:

“I want to say that I still did not want to go back to Guatemala even after all of this. My children were born here and I’m going to stay here for the future of my children. I don’t want them to go back to Guatemala because life is so difficult there. There is no future for them there. Here we have help. They have schools and if they get sick they have Medi-Cal. In Guatemala we are so sad without help. If you get sick no one helps. There is no work for us in Guatemala.”

Ana wanted to tell her story because she said, “People should know what life is like for us poor people”.

You are welcome to read Ana’s full story here.

 

 

 

 

ANA

 EARLY LIFE

I was born in Guatemala, in Nueva Calendaria, a village in San Cristobal Totonicapan. Over there we speak the dialect Quiche and use huipile skirts. We use very different types of clothes.

Ana wearing a huipile

We used to buy them and I had some there. I left most my huipiles behind and now I don’t wear them too much because my sisters and I don’t have the money to have them sent. Huipiles are very expensive; a skirt can go for 1500 quetzales and a huipil can go for 900 quetzales.

The people there weave them on a loom and they make big clothes on them. They do many things which I don’t remember because I have been here for 15 years. My sisters and I learned a little because Papa would make the skirts. He would make them and sell them. My Mama would do the threads after my Papa bought them. He did the weaving but after he died, we stopped doing it.

FATHER DIES

He died suddenly, I don’t know if he had a heart attack or what. I don’t know from sadness or from happiness.

It was the time of my sister’s wedding party and he had just delivered my sister’s things for a newly wedded life. While we were playing outside and enjoying the happiness of our sister’s wedding. he went to sit at the table and he died. We tried to wake him to eat because at first we thought he was sleeping but he just sat at the table with his face down.

We shouted at him and begged him to react, we couldn’t believe it. My Tio came now and with my cousin, he got an onion and a cigar and a Guatemalan chile. Now they put these near Father’s nose so he would react and get up. But nothing! And my father turned purple. Father was a good person and I remember all this at times.

We were still children and my Mama said she could no longer do it and make ends meet with our Papa gone. Mama told us she was a woman alone and making huipiles takes the strength of a man and she just couldn’t do it alone.

So about the age of my daughter Mayra (12), I went to work for people and I grew up like this. Even when Papa was alive we did not go to school because the schools asked us to pay and we didn’t have the money. After he died, I worked in the field and as the servant for a senora—cooking, giving food to her children. For this reason I don’t know how to read and write.

BROTHER (HERMANO) IS GONE TOO

A few years later my brother died. He was about 19 or 20 years old. We think he was poisoned. It happened like this: He went out for a little while with my cousin. He promised Mama he would be back soon for a party at a neighbor’s to celebrate “Las Acciones de Maria”, as you say here in the United States. When they came back, everyone seemed fine, we didn’t know where he ate the poison. When he was out or when he barely came back. I was so little then, I don’t have a clear memory of that.

Mama was telling him to come eat, it was late because we eat late there, about 8 PM. When we started to eat, He said to me “I love you very much, little sister”. I said I loved him too but I didn’t know he was going to die right then.

He hugged Mama and said, “Don’t ever forget that I love you very much”. Mama said, “What is the matter with you? Why are you saying this to me?” He said there wasn’t any particular reason and she said “I love you very much too, but now go wash your hands and come eat. Hurry up.”

I sat myself down with Hermano and Mama. My other 2 sisters were in the other room so it was just us. Mama started serving the food and Hermano took a small piece for himself. I looked at him and I said, “Hermano, are you drunk?” Mama scolded, “Why are you drinking? You are still a boy.”

He said he hadn’t been drinking but he suddenly, he fell off his chair.  I went running to pick him up, thinking he was still drunk. “Hermano Santos, get up, get up Hermano Santos”. He did get up but he was frothing at the mouth, frothing and frothing. I saw his throat swell up and more froth. He vomited and maybe he took the poison out when he did that. I yelled for Mama and held him. He said “Take care of yourself, Sister. I love you very much”. And then he died. We went to call Tio and the neighbors, but it was too late! He was gone.

There is no law in Guatemala like they have here that you have to report this to the police and have it investigated to see what happened. Its not the same. Tio said, “Now my nephew is dead. We have to buy a coffin and we have to bury him.” Well, Mama was very sad. “I just lost my husband 7 months ago and now I’ve lost my son.”

Here’s the thing–When he was taken away to be buried, a woman came dressed in black. Mama said she laughed a cackling laugh and said, “Now I have won, your son is dead! She said this even though Mama did not know her.

My family looked for her to ask her why she poisoned my brother. Did he rob her? Did he do something bad to her? Couldn’t she just have told us? But we never found her. Mama said, “Only God knows about these things.”

---

MAMA LEAVES US

Then Mama died and we were left alone—4 sisters. Mama died maybe from sadness and worries. Her husband was gone and now her son. I think Mama lived for 7 years after Papa died.

She got a fever and we took her for an operation. We said “Mama speak!”, but she just looked at us and she didn’t get up from her bed for a month.

We worked to pay the doctors to heal our Mama. She didn’t get better so my Tio came over and said it was better that we took her back to the doctor. The doctor charged us a lot, sometimes 5000 quetzales, sometime 6000 quetzales. My sister encouraged us all to work hard so Mama would be healed and still live with us. Otherwise, we would be left orphans.

But Mama didn’t get better. The hospital said “No, prepare yourself because your mother will not get better and she will leave you soon.” That’s what they said to us. When Mama returned home she was with us for no more than a week.

The doctor said there was no solution, whatever they did for her- IV or whatever. The doctor said to us, “Don’t be sad but you will not have parents.” I said to my sister “This doctor is bad, Mama will live”.

I kept thinking she would get better and get out of bed and be herself, but my sister said we had to believe the doctor, after all he was a doctor. And when the time came, God took Mama. God took her at about 10 in the morning.

WE ARE ALONE

My Tio and my sisters said we have to now struggle without parents. It was just 3 of us. My 4th sister got married and went to live somewhere else.

I was young but my little sister was younger. She was only 5 or 6 years old when we were left orphaned. My older sister said we all had to work because we were orphaned and there was no one left to support us.

We were left with a lot of debt with the burials. We had to borrow money. I said to my sister, Santa, we have to be brave so Mama won’t be so sad. We are children but we must struggle to move forward. And Little Sister was so small, we couldn’t have her work. We would get up early and go to work in the fields and in people’s houses.

In actual fact, I started working when our father died. After our brother and mother went, we had to seriously work because it was just us sisters. We tried to raise our little sister on our own.

I spoke with my sister and I said that I had to go to the US, there is no work here. We were left without parents and we felt that our neighbors said things about us because we were orphans. We did not feel any community with our neighbors and we were struggling. Its not like here (in the US) where there is help for people like us.

I LEAVE HOME

We worked in fields and later I decided to go to the capital because a woman who had a business there asked me to come and help take care of her children. My sisters were in agreement that I should go as her employee, but finally it was up to me. I thought I would try it and I ended up going for a few months—5 or 6.

But she treated me so badly. She screamed at me, insulted my parents, used bad language and her children followed suit—talking badly and throwing things at my face. I would cry and say, “God, why did my mother die? Why did my father die?” They would come in my dreams and say “Daughter, don’t worry. We are with you.” But I felt so alone. I wanted affection and they were not there to hug me.

A neighbor saw my boss treating me bad– throwing the clothes at me and shouting hurry up and wash those clothes. I was crying and washing the clothes by hand—in Guatemala we have to wash the clothes by hand. She said, “Ana”, she called me by name. She said, “Ana, she mistreats you, right?” And I said, “Yes!”.

She advised me to go back home to my parents and not stay here to be maltreated like this. You see, she didn’t know that I didn’t have parents. We talked and I told her that I did not have parents and that I had to do this job to help raise my little sister. The neighbor took pity on me and comforted me. She said God will punish this woman who is mistreating you. She said you may not see God now, but God is at your side and he is watching you. She prayed for me and counseled me to have faith.

But the maltreatment continued. The screaming, the hitting and throwing things at me. The last straw was when they complained about the way I put socks on their feet and then kicked me when I was doing it. I decided, in the end, that I could not endure this anymore and I would return home. I demanded my payment, telling her I would leave. After some argument and bullying, she paid me for 3 months, even though I had worked there for 6 months.

I COME BACK

My sisters were happy to see me when I came back. They said they thought they would not see me again. I was happy to be home, but I was still very sad that my parents were gone. At least we were able to buy some things we needed with the money I brought back.

So we continued. Our married sister would come and check up on us every now then and my other sister got married. I continued to work in the cornfields, cutting grass, goat herding and of course, always looking for wood to cook. We didn’t have gas or running water and cooking was done on an open fire. We didn’t even have electricity, although my sister tells me that it is different now.

                                                         I DECIDE TO LEAVE AGAIN

My 13 year old sister got together with a young man. I was angry with her. I said that I was working so hard so she could move ahead in life and she was wasting her time with someone who would probably leave her in the end. My older sister supported her and said I should get married too. But I said I was not going to be with anyone. I needed to move ahead. I said, OK, it is her life and I am going to leave for the US.

My older sister was afraid for me. She was afraid she would lose me. But my thinking was that there was no dignified work and I was so depressed at the loss of my parents that I did not want to live anymore. I would look around me and see someone walking by who looked like my mother. I wanted to put all this behind me. I told my sister—either I go to the US or I kill myself.

So my sister said, go if you want to and we will look for how to pay a Coyote (smuggler) for you. Go, but no suicide. By this time the older generation was all gone and we didn’t get along with our cousins.

GOING NORTH

My sister found a way to pay for the coyote and lent me the money for the passage. There was one coyote that brought me to the Mexican border, He charged 50,000 Quetzales. Another brought me through Mexico to the US border and a third coyote brought me through the deserts of the US to Los Angeles. They demanded $15,000 more.

There was a rich neighbor who lent us the money. I suppose you could call him a millionaire. He wanted to know why I wanted the money and where I was going when I was still such a young girl. He wanted to know how we would pay him back. I said I was determined to go and that I would pay him back. He took our house and land as collateral. We didn’t lose the house because I worked and sent the money to Guatemala.

I was warned of the bad coyotes in the passage and 4 of us women and some children stayed together. We left Guatemala in a car. In Mexico we were in a truck. At the border we were locked in an apartment and told to be very quiet so we would not be reported. They said, “Hide yourself or lose your money!”

We entered the United States desert walking—no car, no food, no water. Walking day and night for about 2 weeks in the desert. By now our group had swelled to about 25 people with many men. They were from Guatemala, Mexico and El Salvador. We would drink water left for cows and that’s what we did.

I AM IN THE UNITED STATES

When I got to Los Angeles, I had no family. The coyote was mean to me because I had to stay in his apartment. There was a lady called Olga who was an acquaintance of my sister. You see, the neighbor of my brother-in-law was the coyote I left with. Olga was the wife of this coyote who brought me.

She took me the next day after I arrived to the swap meet and left me there saying I had to look for a job. You see, she had a car and we went in her car. I said how will I find you again? What can I do here? I can’t read or write. She said, I don’t care, just get a job—sewing, whatever.

Alejandro, Ana’s husband

That same day, I met my husband there. I felt comfortable because we were both from Guatemala. He asked me where I was from and what I was looking for. He assured me of his good intentions. I told him where I was from and he said he was a neighbor of my brother-in-law. He was kind and said he would help me find a job because I had just come here.

He then asked me if he could visit me. I told him I didn’t know because Olga had dropped me off and told me to find my way back. It turned out he knew Olga and her husband “Pacho”. We both agreed she was not a nice woman and he offered to show me the bus system. So we got to know each other.

I confided my troubles to him. He said that I was not to worry that he would help me. He wanted to help me find a sewing job, but the sewing here is different. Here they use a machine and I didn’t know how to use it.

He offered to lend me money to go to a school where they teach sewing. He got me enrolled in a sewing school that charged $150 a month. There I learnt to sew and do overlap and now I was excited to work.

I kept living with Olga who continued to be mean to me. She wouldn’t let me use the kitchen and wanted to know how I was able back to her place. I told her a son of God helped me, but she got madder at me, and said he would have to leave. Another girl lent me clothes to wear because I started out with no money. I lived like this for a year, spending as little money as possible so I could pay back my sister’s neighbor.

At that time sewing paid well. I worked hard and was able to pay my sister’s neighbor so my sister would not end up on the street. My husband asked me to be with him to share expenses, and I accepted. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. My husband helped me to pay the moneylending neighbor in Guatemala.

My sisters, Adela, Santa, Miriya and I are all settled now and my youngest sister moved to North Carolina with her husband. My first child, Wilson, was born soon after.

My sister, Santa, lives in the house back home, but in reality, our mother left the house in Miriya’s name because she was so small when our parents died. Miriya moved to North Carolina with her husband but she wants to go back because she left her 3 children in Guatemala with Santa.

HARD TIMES IN OUR NEW LAND

Unfortunately for us, the sewing business changed. We couldn’t find work and now we had 3 children. We lived in a “single” and the manager was getting really mad at us because we couldn’t pay the rent. She was threatening to call the social workers or the police on us and putting a complaint on us.

I was afraid they would take our children and deport us without our family. I thought that they would take my children and I would have to return to Guatemala without my family. My home is here now, my family is here. After all the sad things that happened to me in Guatemala, I don’t want to go back there. People there were not nice to us. They don’t help the way people here do.

I thought without my children, without my life, what am I going to do in Guatemala? Better to lose all my things here and take my children with me and go away. I said to my husband, “Do you want to go with me or do you want a place to look for yourself?” I’ll look for a place to go and where to take our children.

So after a while, my husband said, “No, how can I abandon you with my children? Let’s go somewhere else, even if we have to sleep on the street. But we will be together—you and me and our children.” I said “OK” and we left. I took the children to school in the morning and we went looking for work. We didn’t find it, and we both were desperate. We didn’t have food in the morning and only for the children in the evening.

Everyday we would pass like this. Taking the children to school, looking for work and picking them up in the afternoon with nothing to show for it. Where are we going to sleep tonight? Sometimes he would get them and sometimes me. When it rained we would all get wet and I would see my children drenched. A desperation was coming over us. Mayra would ask if we had a found a place and I would say, “Not yet, daughter!” By now we were all on the street.

HELPING HANDS

One day, a senora saw us and she spoke with my husband. She asked us what happened. My husband explained to her that we were homeless and had nothing. We said we had been thrown out of our apartment because we fell behind on the rent. We paid a little bit whenever we could, but we were late. The lady said, “How come she evicted you if you were paying her something and you have kids?”

The time was coming to pick up the kids now. And the lady asked us who was going to go get them. And she invited us to stay with her. She said that she had a son who was homeless and it made her cry to think about it. She said to go get the kids and bring them to her house. When we got there. she gave us warm blankets and she said we could bathe in her bathroom and change clothes.

We were happy to have a place for the night, but what about tomorrow? We thanked the lady in the morning when we woke the kids for school. She said, “Come back this evening and I’ll give you a place to stay tonight and food to eat.” I thanked her but I was embarrassed. Anyway, we accepted her kindness for another night.

SHELTER AT LAST

As we wandered around looking for work and a place to live, I met another woman in the park who said that there were shelters we could go to. I told her I didn’t know about this because I don’t know how to read nor write. Who knows what type of papers they need?

She said, “Don’t worry, I will help you”. She said she was Christian and God had sent her to find us in the park. Both kind women were urging us to go to a shelter. They said they would help us. She gave me a number but I didn’t even have a telephone. She called the place for me, the “refuge”, but they didn’t answer. The lady with whom we were staying for the 3rd night was able to reach them at night. She spoke English so she was able to speak with them. She explained to them that we were a couple with 3 children with no family here.

The shelter took us. They explained their rules to us. We could be there at 6 until 10 in the evening, but we had to be up at 5 in the morning. The nice lady said we could stay with her another night, but my husband thought it was better that we enter the shelter that night so we wouldn’t be on the street again. The lady called her sister who took us in her car and she left us at the shelter near San Pedro St.

My husband found some work but I couldn’t find any. So he would work and I would be in the park in the day. I would get the children and we would go to the shelter at night. Whatever my husband earned, he would turn in to the shelter and they would save it for him. We lived like this for a month until the shelter said we could use the money we had saved to find a place or go to another shelter.

The shelter said we should save more, that we did not have enough. They took us to another shelter on 88th and Broadway and we stayed there for another month. It was much nicer there. We had our own room and there was a place to cook. It was more of a home for the kids.

The shelter continued to save our money for us. They said we had to now start looking for a place to live. They would help with the rent deposit and help us with a bed and furniture. They continued to help us save. They said, “Look for a place and we will even leave you there.”

To tell you the truth, we had nothing. When we fled from the other place, we left everything, even photos of our children, my sisters. Everything! Sometimes I remember when my children were small and learning to walk, all the memories were left behind. All of them! But it’s here in my head. I will never lose that.

The shelter told us that if I find a place, I was not to talk to them. They would go and talk to them. Not me. Since my husband worked, he asked me to look for a place. Just to get the information.

I don’t know how to read and write, and my husband only knows a little bit too. But we know the “For Rent” sign by the colors. Its red and white. He said to just find the sign and then he would go to look at it.

I looked all over, and found this sign on Maple. I called the number and spoke to the manager and asked him the details. I went back and told the shelter about it and gave them all the details. They thought it sounded OK.

They spoke with the manager and I went them with the next day to see it. I liked it, so they helped me complete the lease and we all moved in here. The shelter paid a 2-month deposit so it would not be so easy to evict us. They warned us not to lose the lease, to treat it like my birth certificate.

The next week we got prepared to move. They had us do all our laundry and we got ready to move. The shelter brought us to the apartment and gave us all our saved money.

They said we had to pay every month. Remember, if you don’t pay, you will end up on the street again. You have to stay strong for your children. They said the way our previous landlady scared us was not right, it was illegal. If anything else happened that we should call them for help.

But I don’t like to go back there. My husband says, “Why should we? I am working and supporting the family now.” He has been in and out of work and now I am starting a business selling fruit. I sell peanuts, bananas and oranges. A lady I met is showing me the business. We have to find a way to pay the bills.

WHY DO WE STAY HERE?

When I first came, the coyote brought me to this city. I want to say that I still did not want to go back to Guatemala even after all of this. My children were born here and I’m going to stay here for the future of my children. I don’t want them to go back to Guatemala because life is so difficult there. There is no future for them there. Here we have help. They have schools and if they get sick they have Medi-Cal. In Guatemala we are so sad without help. If you get sick no one helps. There is no work for us in Guatemala.

POSTSCRIPT:

Ana and her family continue to struggle to make ends meet. She is learning a new business—she is a street vendor. She goes downtown to buy fruit and sells it near the freeway entrance near downtown LA. If you see someone selling fruit, stop and buy some. You will help someone realize their dream of living with dignity in Los Angeles—the city we all call home.
 
 
 

 

⋅ A FIRST PANDEMIC HIKE ⋅

On a clear day last November, two of us from Sierra Club ICO http://angelesico.org stand with a group of 25 youth at Topanga State Park’s Trippet Ranch. We stand here in the heart of the Santa Monica Mountains, feeling the weight of Topanga’s history. We remember the people who made their lives here for so long before the Spanish came in the 1500s – the Gabrielino/Tongva to the East and the Ventureno/Chumash to the West.

Today, the group from Nava Science Academy in South Los Angeles is on its first nature outing since the pandemic began. Their bus ride was long, a ride from one world to another. They are excited to be here, and we welcome them to this beautiful, historical land imbued with the spirit of the Indigenous people. A people who said that their ancestors were brought here by God.

We look around at the plants that provide nourishment and sustenance. The California Bay Laurel with its edible nuts, the Live Oak with its acorns, the fragrant sage and the buckwheat.

We start our hike on the Musch Trail, grateful to be here with our masks, our water bottles and our snacks. The students are talking to each other, pointing out lizards and birds. They exclaim at the signs that warn of rattlesnakes and mountain lions and we tell them that these animals live here, it is their home that we are visiting. These creatures are good hosts and merely watch us from afar.

The students get tired and say it is too hard to walk up so far. How much farther is it? They have been home for more than a year with little exercise. We point out Eagle Rock to them and say it’s much closer than it looks, not too far now. When we turn the corner, we come upon a devastated landscape. The recent fire has left the upper ridges charred and black. We explain that many plants will come back, that here, fire is natural, but is happening too often these days.

At last, we get to Eagle Rock. Victory!! All fatigue is forgotten. Students sit down to eat their lunches. Many scramble with increasing confidence on the rocks, entering the cave at the top. Soon it is time to leave. Everyone is relaxed on the way down, chatting and giggling. They agree that it is a day to remember—this first pandemic hike.

Article by Firoza Jhabvala originally published in Parks California
parkscalifornia.org/2022/04/27/a-first-pandemic-hike

⋅ OIL WELLS OF LA ⋅

For many years I didn't know that I lived near so many oil wells in my dense Los Angeles neighborhood. That office building about ¼ mile from me?  It’s a façade for a recently closed oil and gas extraction site.

 

 

 

The building that looks like a synagogue? No one goes there to pray. It’s a front for another inactive oil well.

 

A wall next to the Beverly Center Mall and across from Cedar Sinai Hospital hides a big, active oil drilling site. 

 

In the historic Adams area of LA, the Murphy oil site operates behind a wall next to a clinic for deaf children, a convalescent home and residential buildings.

The chimney-like flower-power painted structure that used to be at Beverly Hills High School hid a system of oil wells. Once abandoned, the wells were left to be plugged by the City. 

 

 

In 1892, when Charles Canfield and Edward Doheny dug the first oil well in Echo Park, LA was a small town sitting on a big lake of oil. At that time it was possible to keep some distance between the oil producing zones  and residential areas. Now, about half a million Angelenos, from Wilmington to Echo Park, to Downtown LA, to the Westside, spend their daily lives less than a ¼ mile from an unplugged oil well. Not all these oil wells are well maintained, operating with broken cement seals and poorly maintained pipelines. Many are abandoned and left unplugged.

 

 

Why does this matter? Because people living near oil wells complain about serious health problems. They are backed up by a scientific panel that reported to the California Geologic Energy Management Division (CalGEM) in 2021, a 2019  National Institute of Health (NIH) study, The Center For Biological Diversity (2017) and a steady drumbeat of studies from universities such as Yale, Stanford and USC.  

These studies document the long-term health consequences of living near oil drilling sites. Besides the noise, oozing sludge and odor, chemical gasses such as benzene, hydrosulphide and methane are leaked into the air, causing  wheezing, asthma and generally reduced lung function. People suffer from frequent headaches, nausea, nosebleeds and rashes. High risk births as well as various cancers have also been connected to living and working near oil wells.

 

Which brings me to the very sensible California Senate Bill 1137 which was signed into law in September 2022, following similar ordinances passed by local governments. If you care for your health and the health of the community, you would support SB 1137. It does not stop oil drilling in California but it does mandate Health Protection Zones (HPZs), 3200 foot buffer zones, where no new oil wells can be dug too close to your homes, schools, hospitals and shopping areas. The wells that are already there can remain within the 3200 foot buffer zone, but the operators have to make sure that the oil wells are working safely and that they, not the taxpayer, will be responsible for plugging the wells when abandoned.

                                                                                          Will SB 1137 affect gas prices? No, it will not!  California crude oil prices are tied to global oil prices and events. Because California only produces 29% of its oil, with its wells getting old and producing less, we are dependent on oil from other states and countries. Since this crude oil has to go through refineries first, the price of gasoline depends on the refineries as well. Gasoline costs more to refine in California than in other states. Fewer refineries, aging infrastructure, refinery outages and higher demand last year caused a supply problem which forced us to pay way more at the pump.

Unfortunately,  SB 1137 was put on hold  by a well-funded campaign called Stop The Energy Shutdown. By December 2022, they had collected enough signatures to put a referendum on the 2024 ballot to void this law. Stop The Energy Shutdown is funded by the California Independent Petroleum Association (CIPA), its top donors being major oil extraction companies. They have peddled lies about stoppage of oil drilling, tried to connect SB 1137 to higher gas prices, said we will lose jobs and disputed the health findings of various reputable studies. In short, they have used their considerable funds to pull the wool over the public’s eyes by using scare tactics to get needed signatures to put the initiative on the ballot. The referendum will be on the November 2024 ballot.

As I walk past that fake office building near my home, I realize that California cannot do without oil and gas right away, not until we can develop other sources of cleaner and more affordable energy. But common sense health and safety measures and the availability of affordable oil are not incompatible. 

UPDATE: JULY 2024  Faced with a strong opposition and new laws making their way through the State Assembly, Stop The Energy Shutdown pulled the referendum from the November Ballot.  Besides undermining the legislative process, spending over $25 million on the referendum wasn't a complete loss for oil drillers as they continued drilling with impunity for another year. The oil companies say they will now take their battle to court, so stay tuned!

 

 

⋅ A PERFECT MARRIAGE ⋅

Do you know what it is like to be out in nature when you are missing one of your senses? At the Sierra Club’s Inspiring Connections Outdoors, angelesico.org we are finding out.

We recently partnered with an agency called Hearts For Sight that encourages blind and visually impaired people (VIPs) to participate in physical activities. We arrange buses and lead nature outings for our new VIP friends. Joseph Burton of Hearts For Sight has called our collaboration “a perfect marriage.”

A Sighted Volunteer

Many participants from Hearts For Sight come to enjoy the hikes we sponsor. Together, Hearts For Sight and Sierra Club ICO/Central Group gather a mix of sighted and visually impaired people for monthly outings to our state and local parks.

We enjoy the gifts of nature: the birds chirping, the wind blowing and the water flowing by. Walking with my unsighted companion, I describe the flora and fauna that I see. VIPs use their sense of touch, smell and hearing to experience it for themselves.

Joseph tells me that many VIPs are not born blind and have a visual memory of the things that we describe to them. Sharing the nature trails with VIPs, I continue to be impressed by the strong sense of self and resilience of my unsighted companions.

Equal Access To Nature

“VIPs are an afterthought of the community. We expect that they are to remain indoors and not have access to public goods, like parks and nature preserves. The Sierra Club gave us an opportunity to [discover the] accessible trails and natural habitats LA has to offer.”

These are the words of Joseph Burton who, along with Racquel Decipeda, founded Hearts For Sight: https://heartsforsightfoundation.org/.

He is so right—our parks and trails are for everyone to enjoy, and we are proud to help give access to these areas (with the assistance of a generous grant from Parks California).

A Route To Health

Being in outdoor spaces improves health and well being for all of us. To quote Joseph, “The feeling of isolation in our population is a real thing. What better way to engage with other people than to do it outside, and do it while you are exercising? That is eco-therapeutics.”

The Hearts For Sight/Sierra Club outings allow us to engage as a community and be healthy while enjoying the gifts of nature out on the trails.

Article by Firoza Jhabvala originally published in Parks California Newsletter
parkscalifornia.org/2021/08/13/a-perfect-marriage/