March 9, 2007


Zapotec and Mixtec Indians find home in Pajaro Valley

By Tom Ragan
Sentinel staff writer

WATSONVILLE — They are Mexico's migrant workers, but they aren't exactly Mexican.

They follow the crops from as far south as the Guatemalan border to as far north as Baja California.

Short in stature, dark in color and with a language all their own, they're the poorest of the poor in Mexico. And they have long been discriminated against by the Mexican government: their land taken from them, their culture criticized, their different dialects ostracized by those who speak Spanish.

In many ways their history parallels that of the American Indian. And for the past five years they've been coming to Watsonville by the thousands, lured by the jobs in the fields, their center of gravity perfect for picking strawberries — Santa Cruz County's No. 1 cash crop.

And these days dozens of Mixtec and Zapotec Indians can be found inside a small classroom at La Manzana Community Resources on Main Street in Watsonville, where they are learning how to read, write and, in some cases, even speak Spanish.

They're the most recent wave of fieldworkers to appear in the fertile fields along the Central Coast and in Watsonville, an agricultural city whose history is rich with different people who have helped harvest the Pajaro Valley over time.

There have been Chinese, Filipinos, Japanese, Croatians — to name just a few who have left their footprints in the soil.

And now comes "los Indios," or "the Indians," as they are referred to around town. In some cases, they are called "los Oaxaquenos" That's after the state of Oaxaca, an impoverished area that borders Chiapas, a region ripe with calls for agrarian reform and revolution among indigenous groups, brought to the forefront by the infamous, ski mask-wearing Subcomandante Marcos.

And in interviews conducted in rudimentary Spanish, they all say they are taking Spanish for one reason: To become literate in a language that is not their own but which is the key to getting a better job in agriculture.

That the class is taught in Spanish and not English is but another indicator that English may be the official language in the United States, but Spanish is the official language of agriculture in the West — at least at the bottom and middle rungs.

But illiteracy tends to get in the way of progress and promotions.

The Zapotecs and Mixtecs have trouble pronouncing the plural, and many don't know simple math, either, because they've never seen the inside of a classroom.

When asked her age, Zoila Aguilar, a Mixtec, can only answer when she was born.

"In 1964," said Aguilar, who's been living in Watsonville for the past five years.

That's 42 years old, she's told.

"In what month were you born?" she is asked.

"In June," she replies.

But it still doesn't seem to add up. You can tell by the expression on her face. The birth date is much more concrete.

"I would like be able to read and write some day in Spanish," said Aguilar, who's picked tomatoes in the Mexican state of Sinaloa and chile peppers just outside Ensenada, Baja California.

And she and others of like mind and same blood are learning quickly — thanks to the dedication of teachers like Alicia Zenteno, a family literacy specialist for La Manzana.

Like elementary school students, they complete their workbooks in class. They write simple essays. They add and subtract numbers on the page, the eraser often coming in handy.

Although they work in the fields, they find time to come to the class, which is offered four days a week, two hours a pop, three times a day — once in the evening.

Some come to class after a back-breaking work day.

Some come before they head out to the fields.

All always come, job permitting.

"They are a proud people, a very hard-working people, and they are very respectful and shy," Zenteno said of the two indigenous groups that represent nearly a third of her total student population.

But some of the students have low self-esteem. A lack of education, the language barrier, the cultural shock and the pains they went through to get here have all taken their toll, on their bodies and on their souls.

But Zenteno is their friend, their teacher. She is bilingual in Spanish and English and even she is starting to learn a little bit about her students' language.

"In a lot of ways we're like a little family here," she said. "I love working with them and they love to learn"

But what the future holds for them remains to be seen.

At a time when immigration reform is a huge issue in the United States, the fact that some don't have documents is yet another barrier they will have to overcome.

And eventually learning English will become an even greater challenge. But the theory behind the Spanish class is that they first need to become versed in Spanish and understand the mechanics behind it before they can even take a stab at English.

But Saul Ramos, assistant director of La Manzana, said there is no doubt that they are survivors. He said the difficulty of their lives in Watsonville pales in comparison to their lives back home, where running water is a luxury and where job opportunity is nil, the wages as meager as they come — maybe $3 a day, if they're lucky.

"And here they can make $50 in a day," he said.

And yet they are sometimes discriminated against by fellow Mexicans who have been working in the fields for years and don't want them to crowd their scene and take away future jobs from their families from Michoacan, where most of the fieldworkers in Mexico hail from.

"They're facing hierarchies and prejudices here just as much as they faced in Mexico," he said.

Margarita Vazquez, 28, a Mixtec, summed her life up in Watsonville in this manner.

"When there's work," said Vazquez, a fieldworker, "life is great here. But when there's no work, it's easier to live in Oaxaca"

Contact Tom Ragan at tragan@santacruzsentinel.com.

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