Katie Singer

“The Horn Has Always Gotten Me Into a Lot of Trouble”

As our so-called government actively works to bury and dispute any history that includes people of color, queer citizens and the poor, my activity of Great Migration story-gathering sometimes feels futile. Like trying to swim against a giant ocean wave. (Which I would never even come close to doing because I’m scared of those things). But my understanding and observation is that when one is swimming or surfing or in some way contending with the ocean’s overwhelming power, if one works with it, swims through it, then success might be possible.

And so we amplifiers of history continue to share these often-unknown stories, not in an attempt to push back against the prevailing wave of racist, xenophobic, homophobic forces but simply to continue what was started so many centuries ago, a story-telling tradition that has held up through constant intentional erasure. Story as resistance is a real thing. And when we can employ the people’s own words – as I am able to do here – even better!

Today I want to share a few notes about the fabulous, under-recognized, Los Angeles musician, Vi Redd. While this piece intersects with my first post on Club Alabam and the Central Avenue jazz district of LA, it also continues the theme of my last two posts, centering as it does an enormously talented, intelligent, thoughtful Black woman who went through some things and yet came out willing to share her gifts with others. And so thanks to a few good sources scattered hither and thither, here’s a (not the) story of Vi Redd, singer, saxophonist and — I’m going to go ahead and say — feminist.

Vi Redd is best known for her singing and saxophone playing. Check her out here doing both with Count Basie. She was also known as the daughter of the famous Louisiana-born musician, Alton Redd; one more Louisiana-to-LA Great Migration tale. She was, of course asked about him in an oral history interview:

In this oral history conducted by Steven Isoardi for UCLA’s Center for Oral History Research, Ms. Redd relays her experience, without animosity. And yet I cannot help but wonder if this experience of being recognized as much as someone’s daughter as instead a woman and musician in her own right, in some way informs a person’s identity. (Perhaps I am simply projecting based on my own personal experiences).

Elvira Louise Redd (having the same middle name as I) was born in Los Angeles in 1930. It was in 1949 that a fellow musician started calling her Vi, and that became her name going forward. Both sides of her family came from Louisiana, again highlighting the centrality of a few states’ migrants to certain points across the country. As mentioned before, Los Angeles had a preponderance of people coming from Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas during the Great Migration.

Vi started high school at Jefferson, where so many of the “Eastsiders” went back then. The school is full of famous alumni, from Dexter Godon to Alvin Ailey. But Vi’s dad wanted her to go to a different school, perhaps deemed a “better” school by some, as it was on the west side. Dorsey High School was her father’s choice for his daughter, and so he bought a house so they could live in the school district. This was pushing the western geographical boundaries for a Black family at the time, around 1944. But Ms. Redd reports that they didn’t have any kind of “trouble” from her new mostly Jewish and Greek neighbors. That said, some African Americans tried their luck a little too far west. Vi remembers when singer Nat King Cole had moved to the Hancock Park area. That was pretty much Hollywood back then and, while Cole was able to buy the house, “there had been problems,” said Redd.

Another “problem” that the women musicians endured was verbal, physical, and emotional abuse – by men who were sometimes domestic partners, and other times fellow musicians. Redd said she really didn’t deal with those issues herself but remembered a fellow musician’s plight with an abusive husband. She and another woman musician ended up “rescuing” her one night.

Trained by her aunt, the famous Mrs. Alma Hightower, Redd grew up with a slight naiveté when it came to being a woman in the music business. Hightower played all instruments and took no tea for the fever. Redd would often be surprised by the responses that she got from the male musicians.

Some men would simply walk off the bandstand when a woman took the stage. Looking back she also realized that her famous father didn’t hire a lot of women for his band either.

Music writers often deem that Redd was “underecorded.” While she toured with all the great (male) names, her own music is not so easy to find. She has but two albums under her name and was recorded as a part of other bands on a few records. While playing music full time in Los Angeles, Redd had to secure a job as a teacher in order to make a living. This is such a familiar story for so many African-American women, getting their flowers only years after they pass – if at all.

Vi Redd died four years ago, at the age of 93. She knew everyone and they knew her back. Her story is a lived history of Los Angeles, jazz music, feminism, racism, and global relations. What I offer here is simply a sample of her very full life. I urge you to read the oral history I previously linked if you are interested in one or more of the many subjects that encompass her life.

Come On In, The Water’s —

IF YOU EVER GO SWIMMING AT THE ROSE BOWL, you’ll see that the Recreational Pool deck has a plaque with a name on it. Do you know whose name that is? Well, the pool is named after Dr. Edna Griffin who, among many things, was the first Black female physician in Pasadena. But why would they name a pool after a doctor, one might ask. The answer is, because this doctor was an activist, a role that many Black women – especially of her generation – still go unnoticed for. That is why they are the focus of my present work on Los Angeles’ Great Migration era history.

In 2024 the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center renamed its recreational pool after Dr. Griffin. The city’s Recreation and Parks Commission had voted in 2023 to recommend that the City Council name the new municipal swimming pool after the doctor – despite public support for naming it after former councilmember, the late John Kennedy, instead. So “only” thirty-two years after the doctor’s death, the naming ceremony took place. Why does it always seem to take so long for Black women’s work to be acknowledged? If it gets acknowledged at all? This is a madly recurring theme such that more and more scholars and public historians are working to rectify this situation. I digress. And I’m going to do so a little bit more!

Ms. Edna was born in 1905 in Fort Smith, Arkansas. This state, along with Louisiana and Texas, are some of the primary states from whence so many African Americans came to Los Angeles during the Great Migration. According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, during the Great Migration, “among the destinations for Arkansans who left the state, California received the largest number of people. Census records show that roughly 313,000 native Arkansans lived [in California] in 1960.”

Some twenty years later Dr. Griffin obtained her medical degree from the HBCU, Meharry Medical College. (She had wanted to go to USC’s medical school but in the 1920s no Black students were allowed). After interning at Tuskegee’s John Andrew Hospital, Dr. Griffin finally settled in Pasadena in 1935.

Throughout her time in the city, Dr. Griffin went to great lengths to see Pasadena’s institutions desegregated. A few years after arriving, she became the first woman president of the Pasadena branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), holding that position from 1939 to 1947. As mentioned, she was intent on desegregating her new home. So, in 1942 Dr. Griffin sued the city to allow African Americans to freely swim at the Brookside Plunge swimming pool. (This pool was eventually demolished and the area rebuilt into the Rose Bowl Aquatics Center). You see, the rules at Brookside were that African Americans could only swim there one day per week, that was Wednesdays. According to the Pasadena Library’s website the city then drained the pool afterwards each week so that the water would be nice and clean for the white swimmers those other six days of the week.

This is not a surprise, but rather a common occurrence across the country during this time. In fact, around this same time, all the way over in Newark, New Jersey, a Black family had to rent out the local YMCA pool in order to allow their daughter to practice for the Girl Scout swimming badge. And it might surprise the reader to know that this practice did not stop as early as some might think. While the 1964 Civil Rights Act mandated the desegregation of public accommodations, many cities strategized ways to avoid following this new law. As far as swimming was concerned, sometimes this meant simply shutting down the public pool altogether, rather than allow Blacks to go swimming in it. And these attempts at “work-arounds” still exist today. In fact, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, in 2009 the owner of a private swim club in Philadelphia banned Black children from a local day care center, saying they would change the “complexion” of the club.

While the municipal court eventually ruled in favor of desegregating Pasadena’s Brookside Plunge in 1942, that law was not fully implemented until five years later. Again, a common theme; laws do not necessarily equal implementation when it comes to deeply entrenched racist practices.

Anyway, during her life, Dr. Griffin ended up filing over twenty lawsuits against businesses and other institutions in Pasadena that practiced segregation. Her association with the NAACP was crucial as the organization played a major role in the courts during this time – nationwide – when it came to challenging segregation.

Dr. Griffin’s former medical office is located at 891 N. Fair Oaks Avenue. You might recognize the orange door if you drive through that intersection of Mountain and Fair Oaks ever. There’s even a self-guided audio walking tour, created by the NAACP, of Pasadena’s African-American History that includes Dr. Griffin’s former office. In the 1930s and ’40s, in particular, North Fair Oaks Avenue was home to many Black residences and businesses. In the early 2020s the N. Fair Oaks Empowerment Initiative began work to rebuild this community that had been devastated by the all too common act of eminent domain in the name of urban development.

*Walking Tour of the African American History of Pasadena*

In 1947, author Helen Kitchen Branson – a nurse and health care administrator – published a biography of Dr. Griffin entitled, Let There Be Life: The Contemporary Account of Edna L. Griffin, M.D. It is available at the Huntington and other local libraries. There’s also an interesting-looking article that I am unable to access at the moment entitled, “’She Thought California Was Without Prejudice’: Race and Medicine in Jim Crow California” by Alicia Gutierrez-Romine.

On this Juneteenth, when the idea is to celebrate freedom, it seems fitting to honor a person who worked so hard for the freedom of her people. Dr. Griffin believed it was only fair that African Americans enjoy the same liberties as people of other races. And that included the freedom of going swimming at the local public pool whenever they wanted.

Rain on the Parade

SHE WAS NOMINATED TO BE PASADENA’S 1959 “MISS CROWN CITY,” but Joan Roberta Williams never rode a float in the Rose Parade, though that was the tradition. Because there wasn’t one. When city officials found out that the twenty-six-year-old woman who was to represent their fair city was a Black woman, they declined to enter a float in the parade

Joan had been nominated by her co-workers at City Hall, and honored in a ceremony after being chosen by the judges from the seven candidates. And then the city of Pasadena asked for her crown back. This was a woman who also happened to be the first African American hired at City Hall, in the Municipal Light and Power Department. Although, according to The Afro, this may have been “inadvertent.” Same story, different backdrop: an apartment is for rent until the manager meets the prospective tenants and suddenly it’s been taken; a job is promised but when the African American shows up for their first day, there’s been a change in pay – or no job at all. And so on. This is a part of our American history, one that’s not getting as much airtime during this summer’s 250^th anniversary celebration.

“In her capacity as Miss Crown City 1958, she was scheduled to ride on the city’s float in the Jan. 1, 1959, Rose Parade, but was denied the honor after city officials discovered the light complexioned Williams was African American and canceled the float. Then-Pasadena Mayor Seth Miller, who had crowned Williams at a coronation ceremony, later refused to take a photo with her at the annual city employees’ picnic at Brookside Park, and she was also not allowed to cut the grand opening ribbons at Sears, J.W. Robinson and other businesses. Her City Hall coworkers and bosses ostracized her until she left the job.”
– https://afro.com/joan-williams-rose-bowl-queen/

*More along the lines of what they’re looking for*
*https://www.ebay.com/itm/164835505067*

I remember hearing this story several times, including on one of the outstanding Pasadena walking tours led by John Williams’ Center for Restorative Justice. The story was told by her son, (Robert) Adán Williams. I highly recommend signing up for the next tour. Because of the relationships the Center has nurtured, many interesting and knowledgeable community members show up to share their stories with the group. These are the kinds of stories not always available in mainstream events and publications.

So here is this woman, experiencing (probably not for the first time) the vagaries of racism and how far they will reach. A light-skinned woman – “white-presenting,” as her son Adan describes her – Mrs. Williams probably escaped a micro-aggression here or there, but in the end she was not a white person and that came (and comes) with barriers for living one’s best life in this country. Nonetheless they are only barriers and not unscalable walls, as we see by her story and so very many other Black Angelenos’.

Joan Roberta Moore’s family arrived in Los Angeles in 1921, as part of the Great Migration. Joan Roberta was born in 1932 in LA, growing up along famed Central Avenue. She graduated from Los Angeles High School in 1950 and then attended Wolfe’s School of Costume Design by day while studying at Los Angeles City College by night. Joan Moore subsequently married to Robert (Bob) W. Williams, a Tuskegee airman. He wrote a book about his experiences and spent many years trying to get that story publicized. Finally, in 1995 The Tuskegee Airmen appeared on HBO, based largely on Williams’ work. While Mr. Williams’ story is deeply important, and probably not well enough known still, I continue to focus on women’s stories right now. Theirs are even less familiar.

Mr. and Mrs. Williams moved to Pasadena in 1957 because they were unable to purchase a home in Leimert Park, according to Mrs. Williams in the documentary, The Eastsiders. (See PBS’ The Eastsiders: History of an African-American Community (1920-1965). This may be a surprise to some who think of Leimert Park now as a historically Black community. Research shows differing years when racially restrictive covenants were finally lifted in the area; some say the 1940s, others not until the ‘50s. But one thing is sure, just because something is ruled illegal does not mean the practice magically disappears. We can look at examples from slavery to voting exclusion to see that this is true. So, no matter what various sources claim, at least one Black couple was unable to purchase a home in the once-white neighborhood of Leimert Park circa 1955.

Mrs. Williams was an incredibly engaged Pasadena resident from the start. After her time at City Hall, according to her obituary, “She was an active member of the Pasadena/Altadena chapter of Links, Incorporated for more than 30 years, where she co-founded and ran a Saturday school for underserved children. She was a founding member of the Pasadena chapter of Jack & Jill of America, Inc. She retired from Kaiser Permanente Pasadena after 32 years of service in a variety of roles, and she subsequently volunteered with the Pasadena Unified School District, and at the Pasadena AIDS Service Center.” Links, Incorporated, by the way, is a prestigious group of African-American women whose mission is “committed to enriching, sustaining, and ensuring the culture and economic survival of African Americans and other people of African ancestry,” according to their website. Some of its more famous members have included Kamala Harris, Marian Wright Edelman, and Betty Shabazz.

Also notable, Mrs. Williams was known as an advocate for and supporter of the LGBTQ community. Her home was a safe space for young people who were being turned away by friends or even family at the time. This is an especially powerful stance to take as a highly respected Black woman. While attitudes have changed, some African American communities are still slow to accept their queer brothers and sisters. This is a complicated discussion that comprises many things, but perhaps most strongly the Black Church and its history. Fortunately, there are more and more Black clergy and Christians understanding that in the end we are all God’s children.

In 2015, Mrs. Williams finally rode that parade float, just four years prior to her death. The event was deemed a case of reparations by The Afro. And this was due in large part to pressure from the local community. At first Williams wasn’t so sure she wanted to do all that. She had put the incident behind her. But, with reparations, sometimes old wounds are meant to resurface in order to move ahead. In this case, Williams chose to re-live the experience in order to facilitate healing for her community. It is not necessarily fair, but it was certainly noble on her part to step back into that story in such a public manner. It was not as if Williams saw this as some sort of post-racial event, by the way. As she said, “The fight goes on.” Oddly, KTLA never mentioned her name in their televised broadcast of the parade.

Joan Moore Williams was an extremely important person in American, African-American, and Los Angeles County history. While a few sites and activities keep her story alive, imagine if she were taught as one of the important figures in our history classrooms. And perhaps she is, somewhere, in Pasadena maybe. Perhaps there is a teacher, or principal, who knows of Joan and the ways in which this woman’s life reflects so much of our country’s history. May it be so. At any rate, now you know, too – if you did not already – about the life and times of Joan Moore Williams. Pass it along!

Photo by Mercedes Blackehart from *The Afro*

On the Avenue

Edythe Carr, circa 1955
“Rocket to Stardom” Talent Show
*Courtesy Lezlie Porter*

CLUB ALABAM WAS ONE OF LOS ANGELES’ MOST FAMOUS NIGHTSPOTS ON CENTRAL AVENUE. Formerly the Apex Club, it started up in the early 1930s and was still going strong in 1952, when Josephine Baker performed there. When talking about the heyday of Central Ave, Club Alabam was the name on every musician’s and partier’s lips. But, as all things do, the good times would come to an end shortly after Miss Baker’s performance. Despite a major remodel around 1944, the club was becoming worn around the edges. No longer the dramatic backdrop for some of the country’s greatest musicians, resplendent chorus lines, and famous patrons, Club Alabam seems to have all but disappeared by 1953.

Central Avenue itself, in addition to being the place for African Americans to go hear music, secure lodgings, or have a meal, performed as the eastmost unofficial boundary of the city’s racial segregation. Black Angelenos could move south, but Central was as far as they were going to go east. The Avenue started mostly with restaurants, but when Prohibition came some folks found a market for homemade whiskey. Central Ave became an ideal place to share their product. To be clear, moonshine production was not unique to Los Angeles during this time. In New York City’s Harlem neighborhood and Newark, New Jersey’s downtown – really, in urban spaces nationwide – speakeasies arose to satisfy the need for some fun in the midst of hard times.

NB: the word “urban” will not be used here as the all-too-typical code for Black, but in its general definition as a densely populated city space.

Club Alabam once sat next to the equally famous Dunbar Hotel (formerly the Somerville) at 4015 Central Avenue, the only hotel in the area to allow African American guests for quite some time. Run by drummer Curtis Mosby, the club provided many new jobs for African Americans while also offering a variety of entertainment to integrated audiences. Although not everyone agreed that “genial” Mr. Mosby ran the club in an above-the-board manner, the club thrived.

As with the clubs in Harlem, white people also ventured to Central Avenue’s majority-Black arts scene. In fact, according to saxophonist Brother Woodman, “Most of the clientele were white people from Hollywood…. That’s what kept the Alabam open, really.” Pianist Fletcher Smith remembered that “movie stars used to come over there.” * Lots of racial mixing was going on, much to the chagrin of most city leaders. But with so many famous people coming to the Avenue – Black and white alike – the police had to respond accordingly. Certain blocks would, in fact, be roped off for a sort of valet parking performed by LA’s finest. Club Alabam was the go-to place, the proverbial Cotton Club of the west. However, unlike Harlem’s segregated Cotton Club, Blacks were welcomed as both clientele and performer at the Alabam.

During this time the area was dubbed The Eastside, and the mostly Black community was called The Eastsiders. (See PBS’ The Eastsiders: History of an African-American Community (1920-1965). As the Avenue started picking up, white business owners saw opportunity. Slowly, markets and other enterprises began opening. However, the owners were not necessarily interested in hiring the people who patronized their businesses, such that eventually Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work protests erupted — another common thread connecting the west coast to the east coast during this Great Migration era.

Meanwhile, Club Alabam was hopping. Singer Ivy Anderson frequently performed there, famously singing “Rocks in her Bed” with the Duke Ellington Band. Being both a woman and an African American, historians of the past might not have put quite the same effort into preserving her story as they did some others. She is said to have been born on July 10, 1904. (I include this mostly because it is my birthdate as well and I just think that’s cool. And we both share this birthdate with the great Arthur Ashe)! Because I am bent on highlighting the Black women of this era, I will endeavor to note a few of the women musicians and singers connected with Club Alabam.

Notably, at this time there were not many women entertainers on the Avenue, in part because they were told it was “unsafe” for them to be in the clubs. Now, one can only wonder if there was perhaps some protection of men’s jobs in this warning. While there were clearly many talented women musicians in the country at this time, as with other industries, it was not really until World War II when women were provided openings into typically male professions. With so many men off to war, including artists, women finally had some room to make their own music. The Rosie the Riveters of jazz, one might say. And still, they were combatting so many issues, including the reputation that – especially if they played “manly” instruments –they must be gay. This was something that, at the time, many found offensive.

*Ivie Anderson, from “The Duke – Where and When”*

Trumpeter Clora Bryant recalls, “…I never let them forget that I was a female, because I always dressed as a female…at the time they had these mesh stockings with the seam up the back. I’d get a whistle every time.” Artists from Melba Liston to Vi Redd to Winona Winder broke through during this time. For some it would be the beginning of an illustrious career.

At the Alabam, one regular all-woman group was The International Sweethearts of Rhythm, who performed throughout the summer of 1944, and were led by Anna Mae Wilburn. There was also trumpet player Clora Bryant and jazz violinist Ginger Smock. Singer and pianist Nellie Lutcher is said to have inspired the one and only Nina Simone. And accomplished musician and writer Betty Hall Jones made a name for herself during this time as well. These are just a few of the many women whose stories are barely known – sometimes erased altogether by the predominance of men’s stories. Just as an example, out of the twenty interviews done in the well-researched, exhaustive book which I reference here, Central Avenue Sounds, onlytwo are with women. I hope you take a moment to review some of the previous links I have shared that begin to tell these important stories.

There are different explanations as to why things started to shutter around Central Avenue: an increase in crime (blamed upon various parties); the slow desegregation of businesses; post-war economic and geographic changes; and the rise of television as entertainment. There will always be a feeling of nostalgia for communities like Central Avenue. And yet we cannot forget, this summer as we acknowledge the 250^th birthday of this complicated country, that behind these spaces were some very dark places. I have touched upon the ways that many women were kept from sharing their talents. And while the police were forced to perform a certain way in public, violence against Black and brown Angelenos was a constant. And, of course, what makes such vibrant spaces like this exist in the first place is often radical racial segregation, which most – although not all – people see as a scourge.

Throughout this summer I hope you will join me in looking behind the celebratory curtain that is draped over the festivities around this country’s 250^th birthday. It’s not all gloomy behind the curtain, but it’s just that there are a lot of stories still waiting to be heard.

*Some information here is based on a collection of interviews from the book, Central Avenue Sounds: Jazz in Los Angeles

The Long Way: a Short Story (conclusion)

THE WEATHER WAS GETTING HOTTER and Ronald was down to a light T-shirt and shorts in the truck. He never wore what some people called a “wife-beater.” For one thing, it was a terrible name. And for another, he just felt as if there was something disrespectful to have that much skin showing as a chef. Which is how he saw himself – even if not everyone else did. But today was going to be a good day, because it was his last for three whole days. He and Edward were going to take a little trip, go fishing near Marina Del Rey, and stay at a friend of Edward’s. California had these free fishing days every year and the two men were going to take advantage of that – and the free lodging – and actually have a long weekend together. Ronald had not taken a day off, except Sundays, since he started the food truck.

All that day he was telling his customers he wouldn’t be there the next two days. Some were truly disappointed, which made him feel awful. But a lot of them supported him getting away. Take a break, my man. You deserve it. Disfruta! The day whizzed by and Ronald was proud of himself – he had guessed pretty well how much food he would need, so that not much would be wasted. Because he couldn’t save anything left over from Thursday for Monday’s meal.

He drove home, feeling excited like a kid. It made him think of when his dad would take him and the other kids fishing. His mother would pack wonderful picnics with empanadas and aguas frescas in mason jars. It was a cliché, he knew, but life was simple back then. Or so it seemed anyway. Sometimes he really wondered if leaving his home was the right thing to do. What was he searching for anyway? Maybe he would already have a family if he had stayed, children to take fishing himself. As he sat in traffic on the 2 Ronald imagined a fully different life, something that he did not usually allow himself to do.

After dropping off the food truck and picking up his Toyota Corolla, fully packed already, he arrived at Edward’s a little before five. Edward’s car wasn’t there. Ronald thought maybe he was out getting some last-minute groceries. Ronald let himself in. Edward’s duffel and fishing equipment were sitting right by the couch, all ready to go. Ronald sat down on the plastic covered couch and let out a sigh. He would just sit for a moment. A good start to the vacation.

Edward returned five minutes later, with beer and everything needed to make an authentic Guatemalan meal. He had a cooler filled with steak, chorizo, shrimp and chicken. He bought rice, green onions, and avocados, too. What a feast they were going to have! It would really feel like vacation. Ronald’s mouth was already watering.

They packed up the trunk of Ronald’s car and settled into their seats, checking the GPS for directions. Ronald said he might know a shortcut, to avoid the freeways that time of day. “There are no shortcuts in LA, man,” said Edward. “You know that.”

The men pulled out of the driveway. Edward noticed several cars parked alongside the curb, cars that didn’t look like they belonged in that neighborhood. “I don’t like the looks of those cars,” he said, under his breath. Ronald told him to chill. Edward had a tendency to be jumpy about things. The traffic was slow right off. They were about three blocks away from the house, stopped at a traffic light when two men wearing green vests ran up to the driver’s side window.

“Get out of the car!” they shouted at Ronald as they attempted to open the car door. The automatic locks were on and this made them angry. Ronald tried to motion that he was going to pull over, instead of getting out of his car in the middle of an intersection. One of the green-vested men pulled a gun. Ronald turned off the car and got out. As did Edward. Cars were honking, seeing just one more obstacle to the interminable commute. But then, one of the drivers, a small, dark-haired woman, stopped behind Ronald’s car and got out. She held up her phone and said, “I’m recording this.” The man with the gun cursed at her but the woman kept the phone trained on him.

Meanwhile, Ronald was able to pull out his red “rights card” while the officers were distracted. (Because you never reach for something when a cop – or whoever these people were – stops you). Ronald proceeded to say in a monotone, “We do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any documents based on our 5^th amendment rights under the United States constitution.” He then said, “Edward, call Stephano.” Edward, shaking, still with the phone in his hand, called their lawyer.

Meanwhile the officers were spewing curse words at Ronald, Edward, and straight into the camera of the phone the woman was holding. The one without the gun started walking towards her, but she stood her ground, remaining silent. He stopped in front of her, threateningly, but doing nothing for the moment. Another car pulled up alongside the woman. The driver got out to see if she was alright and after realizing what the situation was, got back in their car and made a phone call. Meanwhile, the man with the gun was yelling about “no rights for non-citizens” and then broke Ronald’s passenger window with the butt of his gun.

“Maybe we should just ask them what they want,” Edward said after about ten minutes of standing there. “Who knows how long it will take Stephano to get here.”

“Absolutely not, Edward. We know our rights.” Ronald stared straight at the man with the gun. Then suddenly he heard Edward yell. The other officer had gone around to his side of the car and cuffed him with some zip ties. “You can’t do this! Why am I being arrested?!” Edward cried.

Ronald ran to his friend, trying to grab him away from the officer. The man with the gun hit Ronald in the head. And Toni just kept on recording.

The Long Way: a Short Story (part 3)

It was always green salsa for her. That was how Toni was raised. Her uncle would make both red and green for big parties and holidays, but for the most part on the dinner table each night was salsa verde. And the Valentina for heat. She kept a bottle of it in her desk now, to put on everything from ham and cheese sandwiches, to leftover chicken, to a spinach salad. She realized she probably should have eaten at her desk, then she would have her hot sauce with her.

Toni chewed her enchiladas and dipped her free chips into the guacamole as she daydreamed about home. About her mother and uncle, her younger brother, their dog, a Cocker Spaniel named Rico. It was peaceful there, once her dad left. It became a nice place to come home to after school every day, a place she didn’t even want to share with most of her friends. Because it had become a sanctuary that she did not want disrupted. She worried that if outsiders came over things would change. Like before.

Her dad was like an outsider, he never belonged there. He wanted Toni’s mother – and everyone else in the family – to be different. Even the dog. Like, so many rules around what Rico could and couldn’t do; all these little words, sounds, and gestures to train him just so. He was a dog, her mother would say, solamente un perro, leave him alone. That’s how she would talk to her husband in the beginning, to Steve. But after a while she would placate him more. The kids – and the dog – became victims of this placating. They knew when their didn’t agree with some mandate or another that Steve had handed down, but she thought it would bring peace to the household if she didn’t resist. But instead of peace it just stored up anger, in the hearts of her kids — and in her as well, it turned out.

The third phase of her parents’ relationship looked like fireworks. Her mother no longer placated, or gently challenged, she just yelled. Toni would find herself rooting for her mother, thinking, You go girl, tell that arrogant bastard just what you think! There never seemed to exist any risk of physical violence; Steve wasn’t macho enough for that. Whatever that meant. Like, a “real man” Latino would beat the shit out of her mother? Nope. Toni just really hated Steve, so any insults she could think of made sense in the moment.

It was almost time for class and Toni had eaten both enchiladas, all the guacamole and most of the tortilla chips. It was a combination of hunger — because she’d had no breakfast due to the questionable refrigerator — and just being lost in thought. It was one of the most peaceful moments she had enjoyed in a long time. She decided she would start class with a writing prompt: Choose a family member from your childhood (this can include a pet) and write your feelings about them. She would time the students, three, maybe even five minutes for writing. It would be hard for some of them. But if they didn’t want to do hard they could choose their pet. Unless the animal met with some horrible demise, which is possible. Really, it was so difficult to be a teacher these days, every topic was deemed sensitive, students were not supposed to be made to feel uncomfortable. Which of course was the problem with the world today as far as Toni was concerned. The citizenry had decided that a noble goal was to avoid discomfort at all costs. Nothing ventured, so nothing gained. That was something Steve would always say, “nothing ventured nothing gained.” Where he heard that phrase was a mystery because that is not the way he spoke usually. He probably didn’t even know what it meant. Plus he only used it to refer to things he thought were worth venturing. About things that only he could possibly gain from.

Toni gathered up her lunch wrappers and bags and threw them in the garbage can on the way back to her shared office. She realized she was extremely thirsty, having totally neglected to bring her water bottle with her. She hurried down the sidewalk to Rampart Hall where her office was, turning over the phrase, “nothing venture.”

Fall in Southern California was basically like summer anywhere else. So when winter came, the fall-like conditions finally arrived. Crunchy leaves fluttered to the sidewalks, colors changed in the mountains, and the light took on a softer look, dissipating instead of poking taser-like at the body. Those who didn’t like the searing heat of summer/fall (which was not everybody) came outside in the winter. The parks got fuller, in the daytime at least. SoCal people, no matter their season, were not great at the cold nights, the way the temperatures would dip so quickly the moment that melting sun sank behind the mountainous horizon.

Ronald liked the winter, in part because it wasn’t so hot inside his truck. In the summer it felt like you were sitting in your car with all the windows up and no air conditioning. The grilling onions and peppers emanated heat into the cramped space as he raced from cooler to cook top to service window, over and over and over again throughout the day. He had thought about hiring someone, he had made enough money to do that. But how would he fit two people in there? He didn’t have one of those big trucks. Not yet anyway. And if there was someone else there it would be even hotter, another sweaty body in close proximity. He preferred to go it alone for now, work his ass off and then be done with it. Plus, if there was ever some downtime, a lull in customers, he could enjoy some quiet and peace in his little world, even if for just a moment.

He was having such a moment on this day when he found himself thinking about Antoinette. Not so much because he liked her or anything but wondering why women didn’t come to his truck more often. Was it all those men encircling the place? Was that intimidating? Was there something Ronald could do to attract more women to the truck? Was that even important? Maybe offer some salads? Women seemed to like salads in America. And of course it was important: more customers was always a good thing, and the more diverse the customer base the more possibility for expansion. He learned that in his business class, the one he took at the community college up the street last spring. They were called extension courses. Edward had told him about them.

Edward learned a lot from the men he worked with, and then told Ronald whatever he knew. The men were definitely their own kind of networking group. A lot of them had been professionals back home, or at least had very different jobs than the ones they were working now. So many people assume that South and Central American and Mexican men are simply wired for construction, landscaping, or selling empanadas underneath a canopy on the street. Well guess what, a lot of these men held very important jobs at one time. Edward himself had been a sous chef after all, at a four-star restaurant. He worked construction with one man who had been a high-level administrator for his city government; another who was a licensed dentist; and yet another who was an author and professor. That man, Tomas, Edward reported to Ronald, was not cut out for construction work. The first day they met, standing in that group of day laborers, he noticed Tomas had on regular sneakers. Like he was going for a walk in the park or something. And no gloves. Turns out Tomas thought those sorts of things would be provided by the employer. But he learned.

Ronald liked Edward’s stories. His friend was a good storyteller. He did the voices, facial characteristics and everything. As they stood side by side cleaving the meat and stirring the sauces in Ronald’s kitchen on prep nights, Edward would act out the stories. Ronald was slightly envious of the closeness his friend had with his co-workers. Even though the group changed a bit each time, there seemed to be a central group of men. And even if they didn’t work a job together, they’d see each other in passing on another job, or sometimes in the parking lot first thing in the morning. Edward hadn’t had to go back to that parking lot for a while though.

Conversely, for Ronald, there was something about the physical barrier of the food truck that didn’t seem to allow anything too personal to go on. Which Ronald was okay with for the most part. He was up high, looking down at his customers, speaking from a small window, quickly repeating back an order, getting a name, then going to cook. There wasn’t time for chit-chat. Chit-chat. Such a funny term. He learned it when he passed by a café in West Los Angeles one time.

Ronald had decided to go to the beach that day– his day off, a Sunday. He had been thinking about yerba mate lately, feeling nostalgic for something from home. He decided to stop off at an Argentinian shop that carried it but, on the way, he saw a café advertising matcha which he initially misread as mate, which is what they all used to call it back home. The place was called Chitchat Coffee. He parked, went in and quickly realized there was no mate. But they were friendly there, and even though it was a little expensive, he ordered a matcha. And he asked what the store name meant. Because he was always looking for a good name for his business, his future company when he really got things going. Most of his customers now just called his truck “Tacos Burritos.” apparently, the first two words on his LED sign. Even though it said “Ronald’s,” in script, above the windshield. Not Ronaldo’s either, though that was his given name. The matcha was okay, but it wasn’t mate by any stretch.

It was raining one day as Ronald sat atop his milk crate just outside his truck, getting some fresh air during a break in business. People said it never really rained in Southern California, but it actually did. Someone must not have brought their umbrella, Ronald thought. He had his. Edward stopped by the truck because he had the day off due to the weather. Ronald was happy to see him, a friendly face, a friend. Edward ordered the cheese enchiladas, wanting something he didn’t have a hand in making. Ronald gave him everything free, chips, extra salsa, lemonade… Edward kept saying No más, cerote! But Ronald felt very grateful to Edward. Not only for his help, but for his friendship. He was a good man.

As Ronald was piling grilled onions into a separate paper dish for Edward, Antoinette came to stand in line. Ronald reached his hand through the window to hand Edward the onions, caught sight of Antoinette, and promptly dropped the dish onto the ground. “Bro!” laughed Edward. Other customers had arrived and sort of shuffled away from the mess, reforming the line to the side. One nice man – Ronald was pretty sure he worked at the nearby pharmacy – started picking up the onions with a bunch of napkins that he took from the window shelf.

“You don’t have to do that,” cried Ronald, embarrassed twice fold — for getting excited by the sight of a woman and then having a customer clean up his mess. But the man smiled and Ronald had a bunch of customers to serve, so he just let him keep going. When that customer finally got to the front of the line, Ronald gave him his Topo Chico for free.

Antoinette ordered the chicken tacos this time, with green salsa. Ronald didn’t add anything extra to her order this time. He felt too silly already. He watched her walk away, wearing grey trousers and a black jacket. Those clothes fit her better than the suit, he thought.

Edward hung around until the lunch crowd had left.

“Who was that woman, Ron? I thought you said no women came by?”

“Oh, her name is Antoinette. Yeah I was real surprised first time I saw her. But maybe she’ll be a regular, tell other women. I was thinking we – I mean I! – should offer a salad or something. What do you think?”

“I don’t know man, she looked like she was happy to have the enchiladas. But we could experiment, make something out of what you already have. Like the pizza places do. We’d need some crispy lettuce, something that wouldn’t die in this heat.”

The two men talked back and forth about the possibility of the salad, and then about maybe adding a few more things to the menu. After a while Edward said he was ready to get home so they did a one-arm hug and he was on his way. Ronald served a few more customers and then it was two-thirty and time to wrap up for the day.

Mexico felt so distant to Ronald at times, yet other moments he felt he was right back there, in his home, with his brother, sisters, parents and cousins all sitting around the living room, watching soccer or wrestling on television. They had a big house, even for Tijuana. But they had a lot of people to fit in there, too. His dad made decent money, working in San Diego all week, then coming back home on the weekends. But when his dad finally got a job at one of the local factories it was so much nicer for the family. He was a good dad. Next door to them lived Ronald’s abuela and a friend of hers. They both lost their husbands around the same time so the friend sold her house and moved in with his abuela. They were funny women, different than Ronald’s other female relatives. Very independent.

Ronald grew up happy, liking school, and learning English easily. So many people spoke English in Tijuana, whether American expats or simply Mexicans who spent so much time working on the other side of la línea. But things started to change when Colosio was murdered. The drug people had always been around, but not so much in Tijuana. Of course, some people didn’t think that the politician was killed by dealers, that it was probably more political. But either way it kind of stirred something up and life felt more tenuous to Ronald than before. He had been thinking about trying to live in the United States. So many of his friends were doing it. Even though it was much more expensive than Tijuana, you could also make more money there and live your own kind of life. Ronald was tired of working for the medical devices company, assembling items on a conveyor belt. He wanted to be creative, he wanted to cook food for people, show off his skills. And make money. So he left.

It was hard for a while, of course. He lived in a house with four other Mexican men. They would pile into their one car, a 1984 Oldsmobile, and drive over to the Home Depot lot to wait for work. Ronald thought about going back a few times, thinking he wasn’t really doing any better in America. But after he met Edward, realized there were other men there going for the same thing — not just trying to get by but to succeed — he decided to stay. It was a good decision. But it still was not easy. The documentation process was so slow and he was worried if he didn’t get things in order before the new year that he might get deported. What would happen to his truck? His customers? He tried not to think of it all the time yet everything he did was about getting his papers in order — and not being noticed by the authorities along the way.

Toni liked her life. She had a lovely apartment with lots of natural light. She had a very pretty dog, in her opinion anyway, named LuLu, and a few friends, most of whom she liked. But that proverbial something was missing and she wanted to find out what that something was. At some point, anyway. Because right now she needed to grade eighty essays by the following Monday. Her students were struggling, for myriad reasons. Of course, some still hadn’t recovered from the pandemic home-school situation. They could not integrate information the same way and had problems speaking up in class. Plus they saw deadlines and due dates as much softer than Toni ever intended.

And then there were the kids whose parents were undocumented, or even just immigrants who had all the papers needed. One girl told Toni she was getting in the car with her dad to go pick up her graduation regalia and some sort of cop stepped out of nowhere and demanded he provide his identification The student had her “know your rights” card on her – she had given one to her father but he refused to carry it. She shoved it in her dad’s face, the Spanish-language side, and said, Papa, leen! Reluctantly, he began to read from the card to the cop while Toni’s student jumped in the car and locked all the doors. Yo tengo el derecho a guardar silencio… According to the student, the cop kicked the car door, slammed his fist against the window and yelled something as he walked away. Toni ended up walking the student over to the bookstore that day, to pick up her graduation supplies.

The Long Way: a Short Story (part 2)

EDWARD MET RONALD IN A HOME DEPOT parking lot in Burbank, standing with a group of men waiting for day’s work. The two started talking about their home countries, about cooking, about soccer…and they hit it off. Edward was still doing construction a year later, after landing a union job that kept him busy building residences he would never be able to afford to live in. The job paid well, and his papers were very close to being in order. As soon as they were finalized he would bring his family over to live with him. This plan kept him working, even when he did not especially feel like it, when what he really wanted to do was make food. So he was glad to help Ronald out.

Edward would drive over to Ronald’s house a few nights a week. They would do some cooking, any kind of food prep that could be done ahead of time, and then sit in the living room watching soccer matches, especially if Guatemala or Mexico was playing. Ronald was renting a small bungalow on the east side. He got lucky, finding a fellow-Mexican who actually owned a home and had a place in the back. As long as the rent was paid, no questions were asked. Ronald did not even confide in his landlord, a man who certainly seemed chido. You just never knew.

It was nice for Edward to have a friend in California, a man who was also trying to do the right thing, stay quiet, head down. Edward had a lot of practice doing that back home. But even that was not enough to stay safe there. He hoped his good behavior would count for more in America. He was doing well at work; the boss liked him, the other guys – the regular core group – they all got along with each other. It seemed like most of them had similar situations. There wasn’t much talk of family, home, or the past in general. Once in a while one of the men would mention a mother, a sister, a girlfriend. But it was brief, and often seemed like a slip of the tongue more than anything.

Edward was living in a world of men at the moment and that was alright. He wasn’t interested in complicating things by getting involved with a woman. In time he would, but he came to learn that things took a lot of time in America. It may have been a land of opportunity, but there were no shortcuts in this country,not for people like him anyway. At some point he did hope he would meet a woman and get married. It was too late for him to have children. But that was okay. He felt he didn’t have that much to give them anyway. Let his friend Ronald have some kids for the both of them – he was really going places.

The first time Antoinette showed up at the food truck, Ronald was surprised. He probably looked surprised, too, because he had never had a woman step up to that window. At most, one would walk down the sidewalk past the men in the red chairs – often get whistled at, called out or something. Ronald didn’t think that was nice but he was not about to make a fuss with the men. Antoinette – that was the name she gave so he could call it out when her food was ready — ordered two cheese enchiladas with green salsa and a side of guacamole. Ronald found himself wondering if she was sharing that with someone before he could even catch himself. He smiled too big as he handed her the food, “I threw some chips in just in case,” he said. Just in case of what, he thought to himself. How stupid. In case there’s an earthquake, or she gets lost and has to survive for days on her order from the Mexican food truck? Ronald had not spoken to a woman for so long he had apparently forgotten how to.

Antoinette thanked him generically, grabbing the white paper sacks off the window ledge. Turning around she practically ran into one of the customers who had moved his chair way up, far from the concrete wall. “Can you please move your chair back, sir,” Ronald asked with the quietest and kindest of voices he could muster. That man should have known better, there was a lady there. No manners. The man moved his chair back, not registering what had just happened. Antoinette seemed unfazed, walking away in her modest navy-blue suit that looked just a little too big for her frame. Nobody whistled.

Toni, as some people called her, was fifty-seven, but was often mistaken for forty-something. This could be a benefit, but also a detriment. Not like a woman in her forties is a kid, but her department chair and other college administrators seemed to speak to her like one. She had been in the business of academia for decades, had three grown children and two divorces. She had been around the proverbial block and yet was forced to suffer colleagues who knew nothing but graduate school, compatible partners, and aspirations of academic administration.

That day, back on campus with her lunch, she sought out the most isolated table at the outside seating area. She was looking forward to digging into her enchiladas and guacamole in silence. Only students hung out in that area and they would have no interest in speaking to some professor hunched over her meal. One upside of the pandemic was less interruption in daily life; social skills had gone out the window and half the people were scared of their own shadow.

The enchiladas were good. Definitely more than one kind of queso in those things. She had been eyeing the food truck for months, but Toni typically brought her own lunch to work. This was partly because she was frugal – necessarily so – and partly because it meant less social contact during her brief break between classes. But the power at her apartment had gone out the day before and she had no time to vet the refrigerator for what food was still good and what needed to be tossed. So no lunch from home, and an excuse to head over to the red and green truck. Thankfully the guy in the truck wasn’t especially talkative either, so Toni didn’t have to expend that extra energy. She taught four undergraduate classes a week – two history and two writing. She did a lot of communicating, navigating, explaining, and bargaining. So all communications had to stop when she stepped out of the classroom.

Twenty years ago, when she had started teaching, there had been less bargaining with students. And it wasn’t just during the pandemic that things changed. Somehow, in the last few years, students had come to believe that advocating for themselves meant that they should not accept any circumstance they didn’t like — no matter that they may well have earned them. Just that morning Toni’s office hours had consisted of a number of bargaining sessions, plus a student coming in to ask about the final essay, expressing that she didn’t really understand the assignment. While one might suggest a positive spin, that said student had enough motivation to come speak to their professor, Toni couldn’t help wondering to herself, what is there not to understand!? Not only were the guidelines explicitly laid out, each step enumerated for the whole brainstorming/proposal/rough draft/final draft essay process, but each day in class they went over one step together. But many of these students wanted a shortcut to reading directions, to thinking things through on their own.

Now it could be that this particular student who visited her office that day, Shawna, was confused because she came in excessively late most every day, sat at the back of the room, and texted during the majority of class. Toni used to stay on top of the texting, laptop surfing, etc. But she didn’t have it in her anymore. And maybe that was better pedagogy anyway, she wasn’t sure. She just knew she couldn’t expend her limited resources on repeating the syllabus statement which equated texting to interrupting someone in class. Whatever Shawna, go ahead and text, she found herself thinking when she would look up to see the student smiling into her phone.

The Long Way: a Short Story (part 1)

Photo by Ali Alcu00e1ntara on Pexels.com

EVERY DAY AT 8:30 AM RONALD PULLS HIS FOOD TRUCK UP to the sixth parking meter down from the corner of Verdad Street and Palm Boulevard in Los Angeles. Verdad is a wide street, its lanes feeding into all sorts of directions. Heading north, cars can veer off to the community college or the park; southbound, they’ll be heading downtown – choosing once again when to peel off onto a surface street, always looking for a short cut in a city that has none.

The police have never threatened Ronald with an overtime parking ticket, probably because they are some of his most regular customers. All the same, Ronald gets quarters from the laundromat each Sunday and fills the parking meter from 8:30 am to 2:30 pm every day he is there, Monday through Saturday. Thursday mornings he waits until 9 o’clock to pull in, honoring the street sweeping rules.

Ronald wants no trouble with law enforcement. He is mindful that a new officer could come along at any time, not knowing about the apparently unwritten agreement he has with the police. So he goes by the book. Ronald intends to remain off the radar, as they say, of any and all government officials. He makes no waves. This was a phrase, once he discovered it, that he loved to say, imagining a whole ocean without a single wave or movement in it. Make no waves.

Ronald’s truck is green on the sides, with a red and yellow front that’s made to evoke flames. An American flag features prominently right above the windshield. Painted on each side of the truck are images of some of the dishes you can order. Platanos and rice; beef burritos with black beans; cheese enchiladas…

Once parked, Ronald’s morning ritual begins with him wedging a piece of wood behind each front tire. Tire chocks are not required for food trucks, but again, Ronald thinks it best to be safe; so many people being called out for so many things these days. It was all over the internet. Ronald watched a video just the night before, made by a nearby suburb’s city hall; it was all about how to report an illegal street vendor. “Illegals,” the spokesman called them. He was a member of the city council, with a Latino last name. There was a link to the “response form” right there in the video. And once the form was completed, law enforcement would go investigate the suspected “illegal.” But how would a regular person even know if a man selling bags of oranges on the median, for example, had a license. They might just report the vendor anyway — if they were that kind of person. Which there seemed to be a lot of these days. But that was not going to happen to him. Everything up to — and past — code was the way Ronald worked.

After getting the truck secured, Ronald would sweep the sidewalk in front of the truck. It looks nice to have a clean sidewalk. Makes people want to eat. He then brings out the metal garbage can, hosed down the night before in his driveway. He fits a fresh, sturdy black garbage bag neatly around the edges of the can. It is important to make sure that no garbage ever makes its way onto the sidewalk, or that the bag breaks, anything like that. He buys the industrial strength bags, from ULINE. He learned early on you can’t take shortcuts with certain things. It will always cost you way more in the end.

Next Ronald sets out the red plastic Adirondack-style chairs. They have become his signature. Four of them. Lined up along the sidewalk, pushed back right against the concrete wall that abuts the steep hill of dry grasses behind it. Everyone knows it doesn’t rain much in Southern California, but even when it’s in the forecast, Ronald sets out the red chairs. It was like taking an umbrella when there was supposed to be rain; chances are it wouldn’t rain.

Ronald had to remind his customers from time to time to move back off the sidewalk, as they inched forward, or formed circles with the chairs during peak business time. “In California, it is illegal to intentionally block the free movement of another person on a street, sidewalk or other public place,” he would recite to the construction workers and hospital employees in a friendly manner, shrugging his shoulders in a what-can-you-do kind of gesture. He didn’t tell the police to move back, of course.

After the outside is all set up, Ronald works on the food. He places the meat to warm on the lowest flame; heats up the grill for the tortillas; slices up the jalapenos and plantains; dices some tomatoes and onions. He saves the avocados for last, making a quick guacamole, squirting lime juice in immediately to keep the bright green color. He smiles sometimes, cutting up those avocados from Mexico, the ones in the little mesh green bags. Not that he ever saw them like that back home. But still, he liked using Mexican products when he could. Made him feel proud for a moment.

Next he sets up the shelf that sits under the service window with forks and napkins and all the condiments. He has salt, pepper, Tajin, and cut up limes available. The limes are a little expensive, but people love to squeeze them on their food. A little freshness for a fast-food meal consumed in a concrete setting. Lastly, he flicks on the LED sign that boasts “tacos, burritos, enchiladas…” on loop. Every day the same routine, and he likes it like that. Stay in your lane, they say.

Around 11am the cars start pulling up along Verdad. Small pick-up trucks fitted with racks in the back filled with landscaping tools; Range Rovers driven by the local small business owners; the dark blue Mercedes C-Class of the dry cleaner down the block. Ronald always wonders why that man would drive the short distance from his store when it would probably be easier just to walk. He could see the cleaners’ neon blinking sign from his truck. But he asked no questions.

The first men to arrive, always men, would take the red chairs after they ordered. He would chat with them a bit — about the weather, the Dodgers… They would get their food and go huddle together in the chairs, talking in mixtures of English, Spanish, and other dialects and languages Ronald didn’t recognize. Almost all of them immigrants from one place or another. The overflow would stand around the truck or take the risk of sitting on the curb as speeding cars nearly amputated their feet, only noticing last-minute that the truck wasn’t moving, quickly veering left into the flow of traffic.

Ever since the presidential election there was a combination of fear and enthusiasm around the subject of immigration. The immigrants, of course, were the ones with the fear. Unless they had voted for that man, believing somehow that they would be exempt from the threatened mass deportations. Because they were different somehow from the other immigrants, they believed. Even their relatives, who were not yet citizens, would be treated differently because they didn’t “look” like immigrants. Or maybe they’d be safe because everyone knew how crucial their work was to businesses in the area. But Ronald didn’t know those kinds of immigrants; he only knew the ones who were scared.

At this same time, the city council had voted unanimously to become a sanctuary city. It was an official ordinance. Ronald read in the local newspaper that the ordinance would “prohibit any City resources, including property or personnel, from being utilized for any immigration enforcement.” Then again, the man who had just been elected sheriff was the chief of police a while back. And he had been known to work closely with ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. So it seemed like one step forward and then another back. And a really good reason to continue his approach of making no waves, and staying in his lane.

Tuesdays were always busy for some reason. He had not figured out why. But Ronald always made sure to have an extra pound or two of carnitas in the cooler on Tuesdays. He prepared the meat twice a week, on Sundays and Wednesdays. And if he ran out, then he ran out. That made him feel good actually, it meant people really liked his food.

His friend, Edward, was responsible in large part for how good the food was. He had been a chef in Guatemala, working in one of the nicer tourist restaurants around Lake Atitlán. But the gangs were still there, even if they didn’t bother the tourists much. Edward’s boss, who owned the café where he worked, was part of a non-profit group trying to support the indigenous people there. One gang in particular felt that this man’s mission was getting in the way of their “work,” so he became a target. And when he did, so did all the people who worked for him, including Edward. That was the last straw for Edward. It had been so hard to get out of his village and into the “safe” city and then to find a job, practice his culinary skills somewhere they would be appreciated – and compensated. So Edward left Guatemala, without even telling his parents or his sister. He didn’t want them to know anything that they might be asked to reveal later. It hurt him so much to leave like that.

Ticket to Ride

**Panel 6: The Migration Series, Jacob Lawrence**

RACIST TRANSPORTATION REGULATIONS of the early/mid-20^th century South resulted in African-American travelers often being herded into cramped Jim Crow cars, mostly banned from moving about the train for the next few days. Standing-room-only was often the case, at least until the trains crossed into the North, where segregation was less prevalent, and some freedom of movement became available. Stories from my book, Alien Soil: Oral Histories of Great Migration Newark explains some of these geographical demarcations, wherein Black passengers were finally allowed to relocate into other more roomy train cars. During travel from the South to the East, that usually came somewhere around Washington, DC.

George Branch, longtime Newark city council member – born in 1928– recalled his family’s train trip from North Carolina to Newark when he was a child:

…My mother was able to save up the little money that we made, you know, on the farm. And my aunt, I think she contributed to it…The train was clean. The porters was very nice and courteous …Most all of them Black in those days… They help you with your luggage and your bag and getting on the train, you know…They had food available, but we packed our little food from down home. We packed it in a shoe box. We ate chicken, ham, biscuits, you know. And all that wrapped up in a shoe box…So, you know, you ate when you got ready. So you didn’t have to go order anything and pay for it…The trains was segregated in those days and times…The whites and the Blacks are not sitting together on the train at all. Called a Black section, you know. All Black folks. You know, we had all our boxes and bags piled up, you know, all over the place…

While Branch believed they had carried their food from home simply for convenience, there is a good chance that at the time of his trip there would have been little to no access to food on the train for the “colored” passengers. Many stories in my book speak of those shoebox meals, carried on trains, and transported by car along the journey. This practice was so engrained that for many even decades later, they still made sure to have something to eat with them, “just in case.”

Many of these segregation rules were fairly new, implemented by Southerners in order to staunch the exodus of African Americans and their cheap labor. All sorts of ordinances were enacted — against purchasing more than one ticket at a time, for example, stopping families from leaving all together. Or passengers would simply be turned away at the station, and pre-paid tickets refused. Sometimes the ticket agent just would not get to them in time to make their train, having served the white passengers first. Some Black travelers would then be provided the “opportunity” to pay extra for purchasing a ticket on the train. Yet other times migrants might even get “ratted out” by friends and family, hoping for some sort of leg up with the white people in power. Not to be discouraged, some African Americans would travel to a more distant train station, in the hopes of not being recognized or meeting up with law enforcement. All of this effort was made simply to gain access to an often difficult and sometimes dangerous trip.

Notably, even if the travelers did make it through this gauntlet to the station such that they were actually able to wait for their train, the segregated waiting rooms provided a preview of the accommodations to come. Often there would be waiting rooms for men, waiting rooms for women – and then waiting rooms for “Negroes.” This was typically the case on the trains, too. (See the story of Ida B. Wells being thrown out what some sources say was the “Ladies’ Car”). The station restrooms had the same delineations, such that when Black women wanted to use the facilities they would need to bring another woman with them, for privacy and even safety. This treatment could continue right on through to the physical boarding of the train as Black passengers were forced to hoist themselves and their luggage up onto the train without benefit of the same equipment offered the white passengers:

And as the Jim Crow car became entrenched, Black passengers lost access to the step. At small stations, according to W. E. B. Du Bois, southern railroads began to stop the Jim Crow car, which was invariably the first passenger car, “out beyond the covering in the rain or sun or dust,” and require Black passengers to climb on and off without even providing a step.
-W. E. B. Du Bois, “On Being Black,” New Republic, 21, no. 272, February 18, 1920

While we think of the back-of-the-bus rule applying to most segregated transportation, the front car on the train was often the one where Black migrants were relegated to. As DuBois notes, it was typically less shielded from the elements – including the soot and smoke emanating from the engine. Often wearing their best clothes, many migrants would finally arrive at their destination in a state of dishevelment. And so the vicious cycle continued, as established citizens looked upon these new migrants with disgust or trepidation.

So was the journey for many – and yet not all – African Americans leaving the South for better jobs and physical safety, among other things. Recall that not every migrant was the same; from economic class to geographical location, these journeys depended upon many factors. But the story told here, and those in my book, reflect a large part of the migration experience.

If these stories pique your interest, I highly recommend the book Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance byMia Bay. And to learn more about the Great Migration from those with the lived experience, pick up my book full of oral histories. There are, of course, other sources as well, including PBS’ recent Great Migrations: Great Migrations on the Move. It includes the contributions of a number of historians, including two of my favorites, Davarian Baldwin and Brittney Cooper. And yet, as so many urban centers across the North and East, and even west, are referenced in this fine program, Newark is only spoken of twice (of course I counted): as a “hell,” and then with regard to the 1967 uprising. This, of course, supports my thesis that these stories need to be told, to be passed on, and to be integrated into the greater Great Migration historiography. Let it be so.

No Free Rides

Panel 5: The Migration Series, Jacob Lawrence.

I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO…FIRST. Call and email my representatives demanding that they grow a spine and stand up to the madness in DC; prep for my African-American studies film class; cook dinner for one of my friends displaced by the fires; listen to the news; turn off the news; meditate; reach out to my trans friends letting them know I am with them… It all seems both futile and crucial at the same time. So today I’ll write my blog. Because Black history is what I do, and February is called Black History Month, and there is never a wrong time to share some Black history – especially in the midst of the madness that is our government right now.

“Migrants were advanced passage on the railroads, paid for by northern industry. Northern industry was to be repaid by the migrants out of their future wages.”

As Jacob Lawrence captions this painting, Southern migrants were sometimes advanced train fare by employers in the North as incentive to migrate to new jobs. Now, no one in the Krueger-Scott African American Oral History Project, upon which my book Alien Soil is based, mentions these advances specifically. Then again, there was no question asking the narrators how their travel was paid for. But when you read my book, you will get to meet all sorts of folks who, in one way or another, benefited from someone in the family taking that train out of the South.

That said, this was most certainly a practice. And it is a practice that some compare to sharecropping, wherein African Americans were also advanced something — often land, farming supplies, a house… Unfortunately, when it came time to repay these advances, Black Americans were often met with inflated numbers and unscrupulous fees. And because good ideas travel fast, this practice was also mirrored when new migrants were provided the chance to purchase staples “on credit” in Northern urban stores, only to receive excessive and/or inaccurate bills at the end of each month. And so it went. Throughout American history white people have offered all sorts of “advances” to African Americans and the working poor, from giving enslaved workers jobs in the master’s house, to today’s check cashing stores, and there has most always been a catch.

According to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, train fares cost about 2¢ per mile in 1915, doubling in price just three years later. That was a lot of money for someone living in the South, working for someone else and receiving minimal compensation. It is approximately 620 miles from Florence, South Carolina – where Madam Louise Scott was probably born – to Newark, New Jersey. So that train ticket would have cost around $12.40. How might that stack up alongside a sharecropper’s income? (Now of course, not all migrants from the South were sharecroppers, but it was one of the handful of occupations made available to African Americans post-emancipation, so it is a good general measure in terms of cost ratios).

The total income of sharecropper families in Laurens County, S. C., averaged for the year 1937 only $285, including $214 advances and sums owed at the ‘settlement’ date, and $71 cash paid on that date. In Florence County, S. C., the advances made by the landlord and owed by the sharecropper plus the cash settlement paid to the sharecropper was on the average $329.

“Farm Labor,” Monthly Labor Review, Vol. 51, No. 5 (NOVEMBER 1940), pp. 1151-1155

So if Madam Scott’s family were sharecroppers, hypothetically, one ticket to Newark would cost about 4% of their annual income. And most of that “income,” mind you, had already been spent or promised to the landowner. This is why, quite often, only one person from the family would head out initially, earn some money and then send it back for others to follow. Other migrants sometimes made the journey in stages, stopping off and working in places along the way to their final destination. Occasionally one of those stops ended up being the final destination. This “step migration,” as termed by the Schomburg, would take a long while. In one interview Jacob Lawrence himself recalled that his family was:

…moving up the coast, as many families were during that migration…We moved up to various cities until we arrived – the last two cities I can remember before moving to New York were Easton, Pennsylvania, and Philadelphia.

The labor agents went down South with these offers of cash advances, but not without resistance from the Southerners. After all, they were stealing away cheap labor right out from under them. These agents met with many obstacles, thrown at them in myriad ways – from station agents simply denying the provided train passes to arresting the labor agents. Lest we think these Northern agents were somehow representing benevolent industrial entities, they too were in search of relatively inexpensive labor, offering carrots on sticks in the form of these cash advances. And, echoing the times of slavery, only the healthy and strong were typically made these offers.

In 1916, Newark held a famous industrial exposition, celebrating the 250^th anniversary of its “settlement.” People from around the country attended, including the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson. Newark’s industry was robust, to say the least. From famous breweries like Ballantine and Krueger, to factories that made spring shade rollers from wood and tin for cars and porches, to the Central Foundry’s cast iron pipes and fittings, the Industrial Revolution was an explosion of production. These companies needed people willing to go into their factories and work under often subpar conditions. There are wretched tales of these environments, including what it was like to work in one of Newark’s most famous industries, the leather tanneries. But folks were poor, and these jobs offered pay that most had never come close to in agricultural work, or other types of labor in the South available to African Americans.

And so they came. And they stayed. And their families came, too. And after a long hard while, they made themselves at home in cities around the country. Cities like Newark, Detroit, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and even Los Angeles are what they are in large part because of this Great Migration. And thus we just must keep on learning our history, despite the Herculean efforts of so many in political power right now. Because, for one thing, Black history is American history.