Al entrar al lugar llamado “The Barn” donde mucha gente estaba reunida para la celebración mexicana del Día de los Muertos el 2 de noviembre, yo no anticipé que tal celebración me haría reconsiderar un festival chino – Día de la Limpieza de las Tumbas – que fue parte de mi propia niñez.
Música latina sonaba a todo volumen al fondo. Niños con caras pintadas de esqueletos bailaban y cantaban con alegría en el escenario. Al lado había una ofrenda comunitaria, adornada con fotos de seres queridos fallecidos; velas; y las flores cempasúchil las cuales se cree que guían a los espíritus en su regreso a casa.read more
Understanding better the Chinese tradition that was part of my childhood
by Yucheng Tang | Posted November 13, 2024
photo by Yucheng Tang
Folkloric dancers recently celebrated a lively and colorful Day of the Dead at Meriam Park.
How can a day that’s about death feel like a huge party?
When I joined the crowd at The Barn at Meriam Park for a Nov. 2 celebration of Day of the Dead — a Mexican tradition called Día de los Muertos in Spanish — I didn’t expect it to lead me to reconsideration of a Chinese festival, Tomb Sweeping Day, that was part of my own childhood.
Latin music played loudly in the background. On stage, children whose faces were painted like skeletons danced and sang joyfully. Next to the stage stood a community altar, adorned with photos of deceased loved ones, candles, and marigolds — the flower that is believed to guide spirits back home. read more
YUBA CITY — Sikh communities want more visibility and want their stories heard.
Not only should the religious stories be told, but also the stories about how Sikh farmers grow peaches and walnuts, how Sikh community members import food from Mexico or export into Canada, and how they contribute to California’s economy. That’s the view of Jasbir Singh Kang, co-founder of the Punjabi American Heritage Society in Sutter County.
The “Sikh Listening Session” held in Yuba City on Oct. 23 was organized by the California Racial Equity Commission and the California Commission on Asian and Pacific Islander American Affairs (CAPIAA), and gave community members the opportunity to share their stories.read more
Pae Xiong: "We are trying to tell people that we exist"
by Yucheng Tang | Posted September 13, 2024
photo by Yucheng Tang
Hmong dancers during the Thursday Night Market.
On stage at City Plaza, 13 Hmong girls from Oroville, dressed in traditional attire, performed a dance to the Hmong song, “Hello, Hello, I Like You.” Below the stage, audience members took pictures, recorded video and applauded. This was the opening performance at the Sept. 12 Homeland Celebration event.
“Our girls love to perform. It’s a good experience for them,” Passion Chue told ChicoSol. She works as a program supervisor at Oroville’s Hmong Cultural Center and oversees all youth programs, including the dancing team. Chue said the girls practice dancing at the center after school in a limited space and without mirrors.
Chue decided to bring her dancers to the event when she received the invitation about one month ago. “Even though the population of Hmong people is somewhat big in Butte County, a lot of people still don’t know our culture,” said Chue.
Her colleague, Pae Xiong, tabled during the event. Xiong said she was delighted when some people walked to their table and showed interest in Hmong embroidery. “It’s still difficult for Hmong people to be seen. We are trying to tell people that we exist, and let people understand how we live our lives,” Xiong said.
Sonny Baird, one of the event organizers, told ChicoSol that the idea for the event sprouted within his church group. The group’s goal was to have organizations from around Chico set up tables to showcase their cultural backgrounds. However, Baird emphasized that the Homeland Celebration was not a church-sponsored event; it was organized independently. Organizers researched online, looked into the local cultures, identified the groups representing them, and then sent out emails. Eventually, 10 tables and six performances were scheduled.
Baird said they didn’t end up including groups from every continent and would like to see more South American and European groups in the future. The biggest challenge was “getting on people’s schedule early enough because they all participate in different events as well.”
Since they didn’t have enough budget to advertise, they chose to run Homeland at night market time so that people who come to the market could stop by and enjoy the event. Organizing the event only cost them about $500 dollars, said Baird. “We already had the tables and chairs; everybody brought their own stuff. The lights were the most expensive part.”
The co-organizer, Tamba Sellu, played the drum on stage to showcase the culture of his homeland, Sierra Leone. He also invited his friends to perform with him, including Damilola Afolabi, who danced to the rhythm of Sellu’s drumming.
Afolabi is from Nigeria, where he said there are more than 200 unique tribes. Growing up in such a diverse environment made him appreciate cultural diversity even more. “When I come to new places and hear people talk about their culture, my heart bubbles. And this event allows me to see the identity and rich heritage of different people living in our communities, and to get a taste of the world in this part of America.”
Afolabi became the star of the Sept. 12 event. He danced from the stage to the square, with children joining in, followed by more and more adults, including a few elders. After his performance, a few kids ran up and gave him a hug.
Afolabi appreciates Chico’s diversity.
“Chico gives me the impression that I’m in a small city, but I am also in a big city,” he said.
Lily Bergeron, 21, president of the Filipino American Student Organization at Chico State, said she was a bit nervous because they usually hold tabling events on campus, but this time they were trying to spread awareness of Filipino culture to the general public.
Handgame Set, who sat at the table representing the Mechoopda Indian Tribe, said that his favorite artifact on display was the clapper stick, a musical instrument in his tribe. He had brought a stereo to the event and played a song for ChicoSol, where the clapper stick produced a crisp, beautiful sound. “When I play the instrument, the dancers start to dance,” he said with a smile.
Sam Westover, 22, who grew up in the Chico area, said it was her first time at such an event in this area. “It’s really cool to get people together and know more about each other,” she said.
Yucheng Tang is a reporter at ChicoSol and a California Local News Fellow.
The grave marker now has the names of all who perished in the crash.
In folk music circles, most people know Woody Guthrie’s song “Plane Crash at Los Gatos.”
But few ever visit Fresno’s Holy Cross Cemetery where a mass grave holds the remains of 28 farmworkers who died in the fiery 1948 plane crash that the song is about.
The song bemoans the fact that the farmworkers who were being deported to Mexico had no names in either news reports at the time of the crash or on a diminutive stone that marked their common grave at the edge of the little graveyard. The media reported only the names of the plane’s crew and the immigration officer who died in the crash with them. In protest, Guthrie made up generic names for the migrants and his 1948 words were put to music 10 years later by Martin Hoffman.
Goodbye to my Juan, Goodbye Rosalita
Adios, mis amigos, José y Maria
But something happened 10 or 15 years ago that erased the demeaning anonymity of the farmworkers. Tim Z. Hernandez, the son of farmworkers who grew up in California’s Central Valley and now teaches writing at the University of Texas in El Paso, tracked down their names and, together with friends, raised funds to give the mass grave a decent memorial plaque. According to the New York Times, it was unveiled before a crowd of 600 people in 2013, thus negating a line from the song:
You won’t have a name when you ride the big airplane;
All they will call you will be deportees.
Knowing something about Hernandez’ efforts, I went to the small cemetery just off Highway 99 on Memorial Day weekend. At first I was confused by huge memorial parks nearby, all located about three miles northwest of downtown Fresno. But once I discovered the sign to Holy Cross Cemetery I located the historic grave without a problem.
A young Latino man selling floral bouquets at the entrance to the cemetery had never heard of the crash or the song. I told him the story and gave him $12 for a colorful bouquet. I couldn’t help but think of the current Black Lives Matter motto: Say their names. After setting my flowers at the edge of the plaque, I solemnly read each name. Miguel Negrete Álvarez. Francisco Llamas Durán. Santiago Garcia Elizondo. I said each name aloud. I pronounced every name slowly, including one belonging to the sole female passenger: María Santana Rodríguez.
I hoped my words might compensate, if even a little, for the demeaning treatment the Mexican crash victims received 76 years ago. Saying their names is now possible thanks to the plaque which also includes the names of the pilot, co-pilot, flight attendant (wife of the pilot), and immigration officer whose names were always known and had been reported by the media years ago.
I, like others who have listened to the song “Plane Crash at Los Gatos” or “Deportees”– sung by Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Bruce Springsteen and many more, never realized that Los Gatos is not the famous Silicon Valley city but a desolate canyon west of Coalinga and some 60 miles southwest of Fresno.
Hernandez also helped update Lance Canales’ version of Guthrie’s song by reciting the names of every victim as Canales punctuated the song with strong guitar chords. This fall, he will do one more thing to bring dignity to the crash victims. He plans to unveil a plaque where the plane went down.
Before I left Fresno, I went back to Holy Cross Cemetery with a dear friend who also loves Guthrie’s song. Fresno musician Barry Shultz, known for his sensitive and soulful singing of folk songs, told me that “Plane Crash at Los Gatos” is his favorite Guthrie song, the one that moves him far more deeply than any other.
I asked if he ever sang it.
“I have tried over the years,” Shultz said. “I can’t manage it without weeping.”
I then shared a poignant anecdote I had heard Hernandez tell on a YouTube video about Luis Miranda Cuevas, a young man hired to pick strawberries in Watsonville under the U.S. government’s Bracero Program. Cuevas had called his fiancee Casimira from the deportation center the day before the fateful flight. “They’re bringing all of us back on an airplane and when I arrive to Ojotepec, I’m going to be bringing you a mariachi and we’re going to get married,” he told Casimira.
The next thing Casimira knew, she was standing on the corner at the market, listening to the radio, and heard the news that there was a terrible crash.
I can’t manage to retell that story without weeping.
Hernandez tells many stories which humanize the deportees in two books, “All They Will Call You,” published in 2017, and “They Will Call You Back,” scheduled for publication this September.
Hernandez’s first book on the deported Mexican citizens was named the 2018-19 Book in Common by Chico State and Butte College, and in 2019 Hernandez was received enthusiastically by a Laxson Auditorium audience in Chico.
Lindajoy Fenley is a member of the ChicoSol Advisory Board and contributes frequently to ChicoSol’s Highway 99 series.
As a “promotora” for Ampla Health, Maria Soto is at the forefront of expanding Medi-Cal access across Glenn, Butte and other rural Northern California counties.
HAMILTON CITY – It’s late February and the road to Hamilton City about 10 miles west of Chico is lined with blooming almond trees, their pink blossoms blanketing the fields for miles around. A single clinic stands in the center of town.
Inside the clinic we meet Maria Soto, whose work as a promotora is an essential piece in California’s ambitious plan to deliver healthcare to all residents regardless of immigration status.
“I identify very much with the community,” says Soto, 57. “I worked in the fields, harvesting and sorting nuts here. So, I love it. It gives me a lot of satisfaction when someone says, ‘Thank you for helping me.’ This for me is invaluable.”
Soto is one of four promotoras (individuals who provide basic health education to the community) with the nonprofit healthcare provider Ampla Health, which operates more than a dozen clinics across six counties – Glenn, Butte, Colusa, Sutter, Tehama and Yuba – in California’s rural north. As a Federally Qualified Health Center, Ampla Health is tasked with expanding access to Medi-Cal (California’s version of Medicaid) across the entirety of its jurisdiction.
That job took on added importance as of Jan. 1, when undocumented immigrants ages 26-49 became eligible for the program. Earlier expansions targeted both older adults and children. This latest phase makes California one of the first states in the country to offer healthcare to all eligible residents.
With nearly 16 million enrolled – or one out of every three Californians – Medi-Cal is the nation’s largest Medicaid provider. With the current expansion the state expects to add an additional 500,000 to 700,000 to its list, at a cost of some $2.6 billion per year. Medi-Cal’s total annual operating budget tops $37 billion.
Eligibility is based on income, with the upper limit for an individual set at $21,680 per year, with approximately another $7,100 for every additional member of the household. Medi-Cal covers medical, dental and vision services.
The challenge now is making sure those communities who stand to benefit are informed about the opportunities available, which in California’s far north is easier said than done.
Accessing healthcare ‘without fear’
We’re standing in an open field of almond trees, on a farm about 30 minutes outside Hamilton City. Around us a group of about a dozen farmworkers is gathered, all originally from the same community in the state of Puebla, Mexico.
“She came and interrupted our work once,” jokes Elfego Palestino Vidal gesturing toward Soto. “I never enrolled before,” he says, adding that in recent years he’s seen more of his coworkers fall ill because of the increasingly extreme weather. “Sometimes it gets very cold, it rains a lot, then it gets very hot.” Having access to Medi-Cal will “help a lot,” he says.
Famed for its sprawling forests, towering peaks and rugged coastline, the North State, stretching from the Oregon border in the north to just above Sacramento farther south, is beset by some of the state’s most glaring health disparities, from higher rates of poverty and premature death to substance abuse, and behavioral and mental health challenges.
Much of the region is also designated as a Health Provider Shortage Area (HPSA), meaning fewer healthcare resources per capita. For marginalized communities, including many of the farmworkers interviewed for this story, that creates additional barriers to accessing care.
Another farmworker, Leonardo Hernandez Mesa, a husband and father of two, describes how he put off visiting the doctor in the past when he fell ill. He points to his throat and ear as he recalls a recent bout of infections. “Emergency visits are too expensive,” he says, noting that his brother – also a farmworker – has Type 1 diabetes.
“This is a great opportunity to get health insurance without fear,” says Hernandez, adding that it will allow people to detect health issues earlier rather than later. He says he’s often heard others talk about putting off hospital visits.
A study from UC Merced last year found that nearly half of all farmworkers in California lacked health insurance at some point over the previous 12 months. The study also found that just 43% of farmworkers had visited a doctor’s office while only 35% had been to a dentist. Other studies have found a stark disparity in access to mental health and other behavioral services for farmworkers in particular.
Simon Vazquez, who has worked at the same farm in Hamilton City for over two decades and is the foreman here, hasn’t seen a doctor since 2018. He peppers Soto with questions about where and how to contact her, whether he needs to renew every year (you do), and what he needs to bring for a medical or dental visit (a photo ID and Medi-Cal card).
“We’re here to help you with whatever questions you have. You have my information, you have my phone number,” she says patiently.
Reaching the ‘hardly reached’
“A big part of my day is driving around looking for farmworkers,” explains Soto, who came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant herself in 1991 and spent time working in the almond fields surrounding Hamilton City. In 2007, she began working with Ampla Health, then known as Del Norte Clinics, after a chance meeting with the organization’s promotora coordinator at a local Mexican eatery.
“She asked me what I knew about being a promotora. I told her I didn’t know anything.” Soto eventually applied, was given training, and has been committed to promotora work ever since. “I’ve fallen more in love with the work as the years have passed,” she says.
The promotora model was first developed in the northern Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez in the early 1970s as a way for the city government to deliver healthcare and related information to marginalized communities. The model soon spread across Latin America, later making its way into the US.
It’s unclear how many promotoras are currently working across California. Some, like Soto, are employed directly by healthcare providers or community organizations. Others work in more informal capacities. The advocacy group Visión y Compromiso, which launched the state’s first network of promotoras in 2001, claims some 4,000 members across 13 regions of California, almost all of them in the southern and central parts of the state where population numbers are larger and overall demand for services greater.
According to data from UC Davis’s Center for Reducing Health Disparities, there are an estimated 10,000 farmworkers across the six counties served by Ampla Health. If their family members are included, that number jumps to nearly 30,000 individuals. While it’s unclear how many are undocumented, data shows that nearly three quarters of the more than half a million farmworkers in California lack documentation.
Dr. Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, who heads the Center for Reducing Health Disparities, calls these communities “hardly reached,” and says local and state agencies have to be proactive in terms of getting the word out. “I’m not sure if they will take advantage of this ,” he said during a recent Ethnic Media Services briefing. “It depends on how you communicate.”
A ‘tremendous need’
Aguilar-Gaxiola, who has spent decades researching health inequities impacting California’s farmworker population, points to a range of barriers – from language and culture to fear of deportation – that prevent many from coming forward to access available resources.
“This is a tremendous need,” says Aguilar-Gaxiola. “Meeting it requires more than goodwill and wanting to do the right thing. In order to reach these populations, building trust is front and center.”
During the Trump administration a law known as the Public Charge Rule, which threatened deportation for migrants accessing public benefits, cast a shadow of fear over the community. While essentials like healthcare and food are not considered part of a public charge determination, many immigrants continue to be fearful of enrolling in public programs like Medi-Cal.
“People will be hesitant to enroll into Medi-Cal due to the fear of public charge,” agrees Cynthia Peshek, outreach program manager with Ampla Health. “We need to ensure that this is not the situation. They need to go ahead and tap into these resources. There will still be those who don’t want to take a chance, therefore public charge may still be a barrier for some.”
Ampla Health organizes local health fairs and other community events in addition to working with promotoras as part of a suite of strategies aimed at connecting people to healthcare. But Peshek is concerned that providers in other counties where resources are more limited may not have the necessary resources to deliver on this current expansion. “It’s going to be a big undertaking,” she says.
Peshek points out that Ampla Health recently added two new clinics to its existing network to meet growing demand. “There is just so much opportunity right now,” she notes. “We need to get the word out in all of the areas that we serve.”
Back at the farm, another in the group, Daniel, says he’s not currently covered. He’s young, in his mid-20s. He says he’s visited Ampla Health in the past and that he now wants to enroll to avoid the high costs of medical services and any medicines he may need. “It’s a big help.”
As we depart, he nods toward Soto. “Thank you for being here. Thank you for not forgetting about us.”
This article was reprinted from Ethnic Media Services and supported by the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2024 California Health Equity Impact Fund. With additional reporting by Manuel Ortiz.
