Connection from “The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor” to AB Trip Experience

Earlier this semester on January 24th the LMU Chicana/o Studies department hosted the screening and panel presentation of the documentary “The Purepecha: Poorest of the Poor.”  The LMU Chair and associate Professor of the Chicana/o Studies Department Dr. Karen Mary Davalos, and filmmaker Cheryl Quintana Leader were the moderators of the discussion. The documentary introduces young Latina, Stephanie Maldonado, who sets out with filmmaker Cheryl Quintana Leader to expose the third world living and working conditions of migrant farm working families living in Duroville, California. Duroville, mobile home park, is just a few minutes away from wealthy tourist attractions in Palm Springs but it is just the opposite of a land filled with middle and upper class citizens. Some of the 6,000 migrant people living in Duroville are from an indigenous tribe in Michoacan, Mexico called the Purepecha. The U.S. District Court Judge, Stephen Larson (who was not able to make it to LMU for the screening) made a historic decision in ruling that the trailer park where these migrant families lived and worked had to be reconstructed or given “human living conditions.”

Sitting and watching the screening of the documentary made me think about the Alternative Break I participated in last year. In May 2011 I went on an Alternative Break California Road Trip exploring various issues in California including: immigration (with Border Angels in San Diego), field workers (with the Dolores Huerta Foundation in Bakersfield), restoration of habitats (with Wild Places in Springville), and human trafficking (in San Francisco). After learning about all these different topics we met with the staff of the legislators to discuss the issues and find out if they were doing anything to better the conditions. The leaders of the group created this trip because they wanted LMU students to find out a little bit more about issues happening in our own backyard, just like Stephanie Maldonado who wanted to shed light on this marginalized community by creating a documentary about it.

The Dolores Huerta Foundation works closely with communities of nearby field working towns: Arvin, Lamont and Weedpatch. In pairs of two our group departed to the various locations with our host families who provided us with more insight on their struggles as field workers. Some of the families who hosted us were leaders of their communities through Vecinos Unidos (united neighbors) through the Dolores Huerta Foundation, which demonstrated a tremendous amount of support to better field workers’ working conditions. The Dolores Huerta Foundation has helped them become agents of change for their own communities.

My host family were field workers before they retired. The woman was very attentive to our needs and made sure we woke up with a good breakfast the three days we stayed over at her house. On the second day we were there two community leaders oriented us on the importance of encouraging other people who are eligible to register to vote. They also described some of the changes that the three nearby communities had undergone through the community organizing they had been involved in. We split up into groups of 2-3 and knocked on every door at a specific neighborhood and made sure we explained to the residents what we were doing. The towns were predominantly Latino so there was a great need for those of us who were bilingual to interpret for the other students in our group who did not spoke Spanish. We did get a few people to register, but in many cases the residents were out in the fields working while we were out there in the morning trying to get people to register to vote. It was amazing to see how much passion these two leaders of the community had for making social change in their communities. They were so positive and enthusiastic about their work and leadership that they always thought about ways to integrate other members of the community in their work.

In our stay we helped with the set up of their youth empowerment event that promoted the importance of a living a healthy lifestyle and exercising. This event was a community effort event and there were many leaders both young and old involved in the preparation. This is a great example of the difference that passionate leaders, like Dolores Huerta and other community organizers from Vecinos Unidos, can make to change the world through a united effort.

Stephanie Maldonado, a 13 year old, began developing her view on social justice by focusing on the community at Duroville. I’m sure that the community at Duroville will also be willing to be agents of change if they are given the support they need just like the community that the Dolores Huerta Foundation has close ties with. Stephanie Maldonado, coming from a low-income neighborhood in Long Beach, has a passion to do something about communities that are disempowered and forgotten. Many children like herself have great potential to rise up and make the world a better place. We as adults, or emerging adults, have the responsibility to be more politically and socially conscious of our world and know how we can contribute for the betterment of our communities.

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