Read Online Sal Si Puedes (Escape If You Can): Cesar Chavez and the New American Revolution by Peter Matthiessen - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Peter Matthiessen
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undeveloped,
overlooks U.S. Highway 99, which bores through
the town below ground level like an abandoned subway
trench. An overpass across the freeway links Fremont with
Ellington Street, which is littered with small cafés and
markets. The wrong side of the tracks, a community of small
houses, mostly Mexican-American, spreads west to Albany
Street and the cotton, food and flower factories of the San
Joaquin Valley.
Toward Dover Street, a car coming up behind us slowed
too suddenly. Chavez, like a feeding deer, gave sign of
awareness with a sidelong flick of his brown eyes, but he did
not turn or stop talking. When a voice called out in Spanish,
asking him if he would like a lift, he smiled and waved,
then pointed at the church two streets away. “¡No, gracias!
Yo voy a la misa.”
Irregularly, Chavez attends this pretty stucco church at
the corner of Eleventh Avenue and Clinton Street. The
church sign, O UR L ADY OF G UADALUPE , is garish and utilitarian,
in the spirit of Delano, and the churchyard is a parking
lot enclosed by a chain-link fence. But the place has
been planted with cypress, pines and yew, which, in this
early light, threw cool fresh shadows on the white stucco.
In the flat angularities of their surroundings, the evergreens
and red tile roof give the building a graceful Old World
air that is pointed up by twin white crosses, outlined against
the hot blue of the sky.
Chavez hurried on the concrete path, in the bare sun. He
was wearing his invariable costume—plaid shirt, work
pants, dark suede shoes—but he was clean and neatly
pressed, and though he had said nothing about church, it
appeared that he had been bound here all along. “Let’s
just go in for a little while,” he murmured. He was hurrying
now as if a little late, though in fact the mass was near its
end. From the church door came the soft drone of liturgy,
of late footsteps and a baby’s cry, the hollow ring of heels
on church stone, and cavernous mumbling. A cough resounded.
Slipping through the door, he moved into the shadows on
the left, where he crossed himself with water dipped from
a font in the rear wall. At the same time he subsided onto his
knees behind the rearmost pew. In the church hush, the
people had begun to sing “Bendito.” All were standing, but
Chavez remained there on his knees behind them until the
hymn was finished. Alone in the shadows of the pew, the
small Indian head bent on his chest and the toes of the
small shoes tucked inward, he looked from behind like a
boy of another time, at his prayers beside his bed.
When the hymn ended, Chavez rose and followed the
people forward to receive the blessing. A Franciscan priest
in green cassock and white surplice loomed above him under
the glowing windows. Then he turned left, passing an
American flag that stood furled in the far corner, and returned
down the outside aisle. Touching the water, he
crossed himself again and followed the people out the door
into the growing day. To the side of the door, under the
evergreens, he waited to talk to friends; meanwhile others
in the congregation came forward to greet him.
“¡Cesar, cómo está?”
“¡Estoy bien!”
“¡Bueno—día—!”
“¡Buenos días!”
“¿Cómo está?” another man said.
“¡Oh,” Chavez answered, “batallando con la vida!” —“I
am still struggling with life.” He grinned.
A Filipino in his sixties came up with a fine wordless
smile and pumped Chavez’s hand in both his own. “That’s
one of the brothers,” Chavez explained when the old man
had gone; the term “brother” or “sister” is used to describe
a Union member, but it also has the connotation of “soul
brother,” and is so used by Chavez when addressing
strangers.
Father Mark Day, a young Franciscan priest who was
assigned to the farm workers in 1967, came up and greeted
Chavez heartily. The following Sunday, he said, the Catholic
churches of Delano would speak out in favor of the
workers’ right to form a
overlooks U.S. Highway 99, which bores through
the town below ground level like an abandoned subway
trench. An overpass across the freeway links Fremont with
Ellington Street, which is littered with small cafés and
markets. The wrong side of the tracks, a community of small
houses, mostly Mexican-American, spreads west to Albany
Street and the cotton, food and flower factories of the San
Joaquin Valley.
Toward Dover Street, a car coming up behind us slowed
too suddenly. Chavez, like a feeding deer, gave sign of
awareness with a sidelong flick of his brown eyes, but he did
not turn or stop talking. When a voice called out in Spanish,
asking him if he would like a lift, he smiled and waved,
then pointed at the church two streets away. “¡No, gracias!
Yo voy a la misa.”
Irregularly, Chavez attends this pretty stucco church at
the corner of Eleventh Avenue and Clinton Street. The
church sign, O UR L ADY OF G UADALUPE , is garish and utilitarian,
in the spirit of Delano, and the churchyard is a parking
lot enclosed by a chain-link fence. But the place has
been planted with cypress, pines and yew, which, in this
early light, threw cool fresh shadows on the white stucco.
In the flat angularities of their surroundings, the evergreens
and red tile roof give the building a graceful Old World
air that is pointed up by twin white crosses, outlined against
the hot blue of the sky.
Chavez hurried on the concrete path, in the bare sun. He
was wearing his invariable costume—plaid shirt, work
pants, dark suede shoes—but he was clean and neatly
pressed, and though he had said nothing about church, it
appeared that he had been bound here all along. “Let’s
just go in for a little while,” he murmured. He was hurrying
now as if a little late, though in fact the mass was near its
end. From the church door came the soft drone of liturgy,
of late footsteps and a baby’s cry, the hollow ring of heels
on church stone, and cavernous mumbling. A cough resounded.
Slipping through the door, he moved into the shadows on
the left, where he crossed himself with water dipped from
a font in the rear wall. At the same time he subsided onto his
knees behind the rearmost pew. In the church hush, the
people had begun to sing “Bendito.” All were standing, but
Chavez remained there on his knees behind them until the
hymn was finished. Alone in the shadows of the pew, the
small Indian head bent on his chest and the toes of the
small shoes tucked inward, he looked from behind like a
boy of another time, at his prayers beside his bed.
When the hymn ended, Chavez rose and followed the
people forward to receive the blessing. A Franciscan priest
in green cassock and white surplice loomed above him under
the glowing windows. Then he turned left, passing an
American flag that stood furled in the far corner, and returned
down the outside aisle. Touching the water, he
crossed himself again and followed the people out the door
into the growing day. To the side of the door, under the
evergreens, he waited to talk to friends; meanwhile others
in the congregation came forward to greet him.
“¡Cesar, cómo está?”
“¡Estoy bien!”
“¡Bueno—día—!”
“¡Buenos días!”
“¿Cómo está?” another man said.
“¡Oh,” Chavez answered, “batallando con la vida!” —“I
am still struggling with life.” He grinned.
A Filipino in his sixties came up with a fine wordless
smile and pumped Chavez’s hand in both his own. “That’s
one of the brothers,” Chavez explained when the old man
had gone; the term “brother” or “sister” is used to describe
a Union member, but it also has the connotation of “soul
brother,” and is so used by Chavez when addressing
strangers.
Father Mark Day, a young Franciscan priest who was
assigned to the farm workers in 1967, came up and greeted
Chavez heartily. The following Sunday, he said, the Catholic
churches of Delano would speak out in favor of the
workers’ right to form a
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