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Morton Marcus: Good evening, everybody. And tonight we have a very special show, certainly special for me. We have two poets for you who have both dedicated their lives to poetry and to each other, and I'm speaking of none other than Jeff

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Tagami and Shirley Ancheta, friends, I'm delighted to say, for more than a decade, who will be talking about their [Music] And we are here. Welcome, Jeff.

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Jeff Tagami: Mort, thank you. Morton Marcus: Continue. Jeff Tagami: How are you doing, Mort? Morton Marcus: Ah, that's good. And Shirley, welcome.

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Shirley Ancheta: Hi, Mort. Morton Marcus: That's great. You know, you two, I say you're from Watsonville, were you actually born in Watsonville, both of you?

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Jeff Tagami: I was born and raised in Watsonville. Morton Marcus: And Shirley, what about you? Shirley Ancheta: I was born in Salinas and raised in Watsonville.

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Morton Marcus: And you both went to Watsonville High School? Jeff Tagami: That's right. Morton Marcus: And after that, of course, you went to Cabrillo? Jeff Tagami: Cabrillo and then we went to San Francisco State

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College. Morton Marcus: And when did you decide, Jeff, that you were going to write poetry? Jeff Tagami: I guess I decided to start writing poetry at

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Cabrillo College. So, you know, at first I started taking English courses there and then I got hooked up with a nonfiction class in which I wrote a story about low riding on Thursday night in Watsonville.

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Morton Marcus: Who were the people who taught that class, do you remember? Jeff Tagami: If I can remember correctly, it was you and Joe Stroud and Kirby Wilkins.

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Morton Marcus: Yeah, that was one of the legendary classes and you just made it more legendary with that piece. It was really a great time, it's something that we've never done again, which is team teaching in the middle of the year, and the three of us

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got together to do a class in the new journalism and everyone in the class had to write. Those were great years. It's not like that anymore. And Shirely, what about you? When did you get interested in literature?

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Shirley Ancheta: I always liked literature, I used to use it as a form of escapism since I was about five years old. It took Cabrillo to get me to writing again, to begin me writing, and it was through your encouragement and Joe Stroud's

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and everyone else up there in the English department. Morton Marcus: Well, I need not tell you, not to embarrass you, but I was embarrassing both of you, that certainly -- and I don't know whether you've ever realized this or not -- but for

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us, both of you -- when I say for us, I talk for the English department, those of us who are still there -- you are the shining examples of why the hell we're in this damn business. Because it's well, it's the old thing, you know, you give the

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ball to someone and they run with it. You pass the baton on. And when we talk to both of you, and when we hear your work, it's just a joy all over again and a realization of why we've done what we've done. Now you both do have, especially for people who

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are listening to this program, a very interesting slant to poetry and that's because you both really talk about the Watsonville experience in many of your poems. I know that's true of Jeff, and you people out there may recognize the name of

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Jeff Tagami, he's the author of a wonderful award winning book called, "October Life." Can that be gotten anywhere in the county? Jeff Tagami: Well, it just went into second printing and we're

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trying to get it over here into the Santa Cruz County. Morton Marcus: It's not anywhere, it's not at Capitola Cafe or Bookshop Santa Cruz? Jeff Tagami: No, not yet, no. It's supposed to be there soon.

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Morton Marcus: Okay. And Shirley, you have just come back to writing after years of being a mother and having little children run crazy all day long around you and also working. What do you find that you've been writing about since you've

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come back to poetry? Shirley Ancheta: I've basically just been trying to write after the kids go to bed. As a working mom, I didn't have much time to do that. I like to write particularly of women of color,

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their experiences. We don't always find their experiences on paper and it would be nice for them to see that, hey, their lives are there on paper too, it must be important. That's the audience I do try to reach.

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Morton Marcus: Did you to actually meet in high school and start to go together? Are you childhood sweethearts or Cabrillo sweethearts? Jeff Tagami: It was something like childhood sweethearts.

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Shirley Ancheta: I would say Cabrillo sweethearts. Morton Marcus: You got to get together by now. Jeff Tagami: We met in fourth grade in Moss Landing. Morton Marcus: Wow.

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Shirley Ancheta: University of Moss Landing. Jeff Tagami: Fourth grade, yeah. But I think we started getting serious when we were at Cabrillo. Morton Marcus: That's great. Yeah, I just had a flash of

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watching you as tutors waiting in Joe's office for some of the students to come in. Okay, I would like people out there to hear the kind of work that you write. And Shirley, why don't you lead it off by reading something, telling us a little

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bit about it and then letting it go. Shirley Ancheta: Okay, the first piece I want to read, Mort, is: CARABAO, and that is our water buffalo in the Philippines. I've never seen one myself, I've seen pictures, it's almost become a

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mythical animal for me since I haven't been to the Philippines yet. Al Robles, a poet in San Francisco always includes at least a thousand in each one of his poems. So this one actually is for him.

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I have felt them, too. The water buffalo. They come from far, unlighted fields. They lead us out of our city streets into the sleeping blue of water, all of us crossing together. Inside their curved horns, the voices whisper us back from our

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wanderings. On Kearney Street, we are far from the lettuce fields, the cockfights, the blood of the pig. And still farther, trapped in memory, comes the arrival of workers' boats, of cane fields waking in the arms of dark men. I have not

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always known their tender presence. In this city cradled by two bridges, the old ones disguised as dog spirits lick the bowls we leave for the dead. The wind spins us in this ordinary world until someone nearly broken with desire to be

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lifted to another country in his heart remembers the feel of the animal's black hair, the slow but powerful carabao walk. In the dark, they chase us into dream, into wet voices that bathe in the blue night, like the blue awakening of fish.

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Morton Marcus: Absolutely gorgeous stuff, really lovely. Very, very nice. What, I asked this embarrassing question to everyone that comes on, what do you try to achieve in your poems? I mean, you've already talked about the women aspect of

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it, but I mean, a poem like that that's not really a poem about women of color. What were you trying to achieve? It seems like you've gone into the world of dream and myth in that poem. Shirley Ancheta: That's what I think I'm trying to do in this

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one. It's more of going back into our past. Since we've been here a couple of generations now, we really don't know what- how this animal works, we've more or less lost contact with that part of ourselves and it's just trying to get back into

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feeling Filipino and into feeling, I- Morton Marcus: Oh, that's okay. You know, if we're worrying about perfect sentences and perfect mellifluousness over the air, I certainly wouldn't be sitting where I'm sitting.

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Shirley Ancheta: Sorry, I lost it. Morton Marcus: You know, both of you belong -- I know that Jeff did anyway -- to the Kearney Street, the street group in San Francisco, and generally these are Asian-American writers.

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There are a lot of Filipino-American writers, right? Jeff Tagami: That's right. Morton Marcus: And is this some of the things that, you know,

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you would talk about there? The sense of the loss of the real touch with what it meant to be Filipino? Jeff Tagami: Yeah, I think so. And the reason is because there was a big gap in Filipino literature, Filipino-American

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writing, since Carlos Bulosan wrote, "America Is in the Heart," many years ago. And so now it's been like a renaissance of Filipino-American writing to try to fill up that gap, because a long time ago it was like a snowfield without prints and so

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anyone could come across and write something and pave a path, you know. Morton Marcus: "America Is in the Heart," Carlos- how do you pronounce his last name?

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Jeff Tagami: Bulosan. Morton Marcus: Bulosan. Boy, I've been pronouncing that wrong all these years. Really a very powerful work, beautiful prose work, that really has taken its place in American literature,

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but of course, obviously it's Filipino-American literature, in fact, maybe even considered Filipino literature. And for anyone out there who does not know this work, I would suggest that you also go to your library and ask for Filipino literature,

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there really is a big literary tradition from the Philippines and there are a lot of writers. So it's one of those countries that has really expressed itself in literature for a very, very, very long time. Jeffrey, why don't we hear something of

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yours? Jeff Tagami: Okay, since it's apple season, I think I'd like to read a poem about working- Morton Marcus: This is one of my favorites.

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Jeff Tagami: Working in the apples. And this is called: LABOR OF LOVE When my mother and I entered the orchard with our ladders, the morning moisture wet everything -- the leaves, the apples, the

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dust that fell on them all night, and then that dust became mud, which stuck to our hands and dried when the sun came out. The boss who stopped by earlier in his Jeep reminded us to take our time, so as not to bruise the apples they called Golden

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Delicious. How you must with great care gently rock them into the bin, as if putting a sleeping child to bed. It's like a labor of love, he said. Because the apples are the same color as the leaves, a light green, picking was slow, having

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to reach into a clump of leaves blindly, until we felt the smooth globe. "Come on out, little darlings," my mother called to them as though they were hiding. I suggested she stick with a short ladder to pick only the ones hanging low.

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From above, I could keep an eye on her, making sure she planted her ladder firmly into the soft earth, asking her politely to empty her bag before it got too full. It was when I ran out of ladder and I had to climb into the tree that I began singing,

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hoping this would ease my fear and my mother's fear for me. "Careful," she said, "careful." I began singing her favorite song, "I'm In The Mood For Love," until I had to stop and ask her for the right words, coaxing her finally, to sing

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along. Her sweet voice lifting about the scant shattering of birds in the canyon. Over the canyon, a jetliner lazily headed west, nothing between it and me but blue sky and my black hand poking from the tops of trees and waving, there being so much

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love in my heart and heaven in my eyes. Morton Marcus: That one's for Joe Stroud. Jeff Tagami: Yeah, that's Joe- Morton Marcus: That's one of his favorite poems. It's a great

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poem, wonderful stuff. Well, let us go on, Shirley, and take us where you want to. Shirley Ancheta: Oh, well since Jeff read an apple poem, this one particular poem has the word apple in it. Since it's October,

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I'd like to read a poem for two special friends that I lost fourteen years ago in October. It's called, "The Distance," it's for Sharon Lu and Michelle Hamada. We were doing an oral history project in Watsonville while we were attending San

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Francisco State, and we all decided, including Jeff, back then to come to Watsonville and interview some of the men at the Filipino labor camps, in fact that labor camp no longer exists in Watsonville. And during that period, we were in a car

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accident, and Sharon and Michelle were killed. I was a survivor and this is my survivor's poem. It's called: THE DISTANCE October, dark sister, from the apple orchards, your odor is

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rising. The farmworkers are leaving their songs in the branches. Every blues(?) is an ache rocking. This long month, the black fields open and the swollen nights carry the shoes of the dead.

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Morton Marcus: Since that was nice and short, you're going to have to read another one. Shirley Ancheta: Oh, I do. While I switch from one, I'd like to say hello to Miles and Travis who are probably listening

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tonight. Morton Marcus: You can't do that over the air show. Jeff Tagami: Hi Miles and Travis. Shirley Ancheta: Hi Miles and Travis.

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Morton Marcus: It's like the end of a football game right? The only way she can say hello to is mom. You might as well say, ello mom. Shirley Ancheta: Hi, mom!

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Okay, I'll change the scene a little bit. This one is called: STAIRS, it's a woman's poem. The scene gets repeated in department stores and movie houses. They find the darkest corner at the top of the stairs.

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He leans toward her, he fingers a red earring and touches her hair. She hugs his coat and finds the dark of his mouth. Now she steps out of her shoes and divides herself in two. She watches herself, standing in a black dress, tracing with her

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finger an imaginary circle on his shoulder. She is viewing the gray stairs, the steps that lead to familiarity, the voice echoing the voice at the end of the stairs. She feels the loss approaching. This is the moment a slipping woman deepens in her

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pale turning toward herself. The rain collects its darkness and multiplies it twice. Morton Marcus: Very nice, very nice. Yeah, okay you see,- for me, folks out there, I'm hearing Shirley's stuff, all this is new

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to me, this is first time stuff, so I'm getting to know it, I'm getting to know it. Psychology and myth. Shirley Ancheta: Glad you like it. Morton Marcus: Great. Jeffrey.

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Jeff Tagami: I'd like to read a poem for all the people live in Pajaro. It's called: SONG OF PAJARO Pajaro, the men thigh deep in mud, who are cutting

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cauliflower. The tractor they must depend to pull them out, the catering trucks selling hot coffee. Pajaro, the children who clean the mud from their father's boots. They sleep, they wake to the smell of cauliflower growing and fields that are not

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dreams, fields that begin under their bedroom and end in a world they do not know, from the mountains to the river, from the river to the beach. Now Pajaro is tired, it wants to sleep. The packing sheds shut down for the night, the trucks close the

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trailer doors, and the Southern Pacific leaves town having got what it wanted. This Pajaro of my mother leaving work, who at this moment is crossing the bridge of no lights in rebuke, Electra with wings like a huge bird crossing over the black

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river toward home where she will make the sign of the cross over the cooked rice in the name of the Lord and prepare for the table, the steaming plate of cauliflower. Morton Marcus: Okay, why don't you read another one, Jeff?

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Jeff Tagami: Okay. Morton Marcus: And, you know, make comments on these. This is the chance to talk more about the poem and then the poem is there. So anything you want to say about it, want the listeners

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out there to hear or listen for, since this is going to be the first time they've heard these poems probably. Jeff Tagami: I'm going to read a poem called, "Tobera." It's about Fermin Tobera, who was a Filipino laborer back in the

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30s. And he was murdered during the race riots, the Watsonville race riots of 1930. This was caused mainly by tension brought on by a Palm Beach taxi dance and the turmoil of that time. So I want to say that he was killed by local high school kids and-

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who were never convicted of the crime. And his body was returned to the Philippines where they erected a monument in his honor and there is a national day of humiliation. TOBERA

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My name is Firmin, I'm twenty-two forever. I work all day. I tip a bottle of bourbon and swallow four times. I'm as strong as hell. It wasn't always this way. Before, I was serenaded by a band that played a slow waltz, and around me

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danced five pale-skinned women whose eyes were blackened by makeup. My head swooned from the scent of perfume, and my body grew weak until the music stopped and I remembered there was a room full of other men waiting in line for a chance to

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dance with these women and I was at the end of this line. Such was the power of my desire. So I carried my desire to work with me, I carried it over my shoulder like my home, it was in my home. When I swung it, desire cut the weeds between the long

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rows of sugar beet and my desire sweetened throughout the day until it grew dark and my eyes which were separate from my desire could no longer see. There was time to return to the bunkhouse and drink and drink until my desire blurred along

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with my seeing and I fell asleep. Desire not loneliness bought the tickets to hang around my neck like a braided rope. Until we were a flock of men unashamed to spend a week's wage for dance. Yes, a man gets lonely, but he has to do

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something to stop going crazy, and it's not craziness when men get together to buy a '29 Model T and drive from Watsonville to Lompoc, San Pedro to Oxnard and back again, pass the neatly clipped lawns of white neighborhoods where they are not

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wanted in a country where they are not welcome, and to do this over and over like a man slapping his own face again and again. I'm not bitter, believe me. I've got a place I call home where I can lay my head on a clean pillow sheet. There are

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men I can call brother. Here's my shed, here are all my tools, my garden. If it pleases me, I can walk to the river and stand under the bridge. While above me, white families rush back and forth in their cars. I can feel their laughter against my back

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in the railing's vibration, I could be happy. This is how I return to my bed each night with a smile on my face because I know what awaits me. Listen, here comes the buzzing of the bullet which bears my name. It's a bee looking for the hive of my

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neck and I must lay still for its sweet entrance. Time moves on. My brothers grow older without me, and I become the cold breath on their necks, the blind fog in the field. I'm not spiteful, just a reminder when things are going well, this is

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all my desire demands now. Remember me? I'm Firmin, the young one, forever twenty-two, whose name is forming like a dead son even now on the pursed lips of my brothers, whispering, Tobera, Tobera, Tobera.

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Morton Marcus: We are talking to Jeff Tagami and Shirley Ancheta-Tagami, two poets from Watsonville who have made the experience of South County into literature that makes all of us grow. We will be back after a short musical interlude.

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[Music] And this is the Poetry Show and today we are talking to Jeff Tagami and Shirley Ancheta-Tagami. But before we get back to them, I would like to make several announcements.

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First of all, this is a quiet drive and we'd like to stress the word quiet. If you would like to call up and subscribe to the Poetry Show, you know, this is really Octopush month and we need you to subscribe because you are the people who support

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this radio station. So if you like what you hear tonight, what you've heard other nights on the Poetry Show or other shows, give us a call and we'll sign you up. And the basic rate is $35. The basic rate plus one premium, which is a cassette, is $45 and

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then you can join for $52, the Buck of the Week Club for one measly dollar per week, you can listen to the best poetry. We've got Shirley and Jeff next week, we're live, we'll have T.S. Eliot or Wallace Stevens who magically appear before our

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microphones, you'd never know the difference from the real thing, and you can just hear Joe or me carrying on about the wonders of the world of poetry. The Buck a Week Club $52, $1 a week and you get a CD or a cassette. So, if you want to

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join KUSP, this is the week to do it. We're trying to do it quietly, not stop the programming. And I've got some more announcements. I would certainly like you to stay tuned for Storyline, Thursdays at 9pm. What is Storyline? It's an

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anthology of radio theater featuring a wide variety of classics, contemporary works, talented local actors, and original dramas, and more. Last Thursday on Storyline, Hank Prince got off easy when questioned about the murder of

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Cheryl Browning, but he lost the affections of Ginny Calvert. On his own, he began to clean up his act and found a clue hidden in a wall safe. Find out what Hank found as the mystery deepens in Philip Lee Williams' "Slow Dance in Autumn" on Mark

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Donovan's Storyline, Thursday night at nine right here on KUSP FM. I'd also like to tell you about Open Mic, which is showtime. You go down and you perform yourself as though you are a performer every Monday night at the Santa Cruz Art

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League at 526 Broadway in Santa Cruz. That's at the Santa Cruz Art League, 526 Broadway in Santa Cruz. Showtime is at 8pm and performers have to sign in by 7:30 and it's called the Open Mic, so take advantage of that. That sounds like a lot of fun.

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Meanwhile, Paisley Moon, box 2373 Santa Cruz, California 95063, has announced Paisley Moon's third annual poetry contest, first place prize $100, second place $50, third $25. All winning poems will be published in Paisley Moon, and just send

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your contribution, poems thirty-five lines or less [cut-off]. Nothing didactic, a greeting card is so cliche ridden. And send that to box 2373, 2373 Santa Cruz, California 95063.

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The wonderful Paisley Moon, Mike Spring is the editor of that. And I would like to announce a reading this Sunday at Kokomo Java, which is right next to Kuumbwa's. Kokomo Java's, 7:30 this Sunday, the wonderful, I guess I would call them Latino

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poet, or even Mexican poet, who's been on this program several times, Francisco Alarcon will be reading with Linda Fox and the strange fellow by the name of Mort Marcus, this Sunday at 7:30. And I know Linda will be reading new poems, I'll be

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reading new poems, and if I know Francisco, he will be reading new poems. So come on down to Kokomo Java's right next to Kuumbwa in Downtown Santa Cruz at 7:30 this Sunday. Well, right now, we are talking with Jeff Tagami and Shirley

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Ancheta, two poets who lived in San Francisco. They went to San Francisco State, as Shirley said, and for fourteen years they lived in San Francisco and have just really moved down to Santa Cruz, I guess it was last winter, wasn't it?

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No, you can't nod [cross talk] [laughter] Shirley Ancheta: The end of January. Morton Marcus: The end of January. Jeff is reading his poems, he's getting totally absorbed. They must be good.

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And, you know, we were talking before about the fact that I write for one audience, you know, and that audience is the quote-unquote, poetry audience, and much of the time, it's white. And you really sort of write for two audiences and why

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don't you both talk to that point? Jeff Tagami: I think it was very difficult for us when we started writing poetry because I did have to appease the regular poetry audience, which was white, you know. And also to

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appease the Asian-American audience and in that fashion, you know, I always had to make sure that my sensibilities were intact, and also that if I was to write anything historically, that also would have to be historically correct.

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Shirley Ancheta: I think the poet has a task to bring the beauty of words and experience to the audience. And the Asian American poet, or any poet of color, has an additional task. I think that was well said by Elaine Kim, she's a professor of

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ethnic studies at UC Berkeley and she said, for Asian American writers, the task is to contribute to the total image and identity of America by depicting their own experiences and defining their own humanity as part of the composite image

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of the American people. I believe that and I think we, when we write, we have to think of those two audiences and try to appease both of them all the time. Morton Marcus: You know, I mean, I agree with that 100% but it's

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interesting that you both use the word appease. And I want to know why you use that word because what it means is sort of keep them off your back. Shirley Ancheta: [Laughs] That's true.

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Morton Marcus: Is that the way you feel about it or? Jeff Tagami: Sure, I think that you know, I won't name some of the books that have been coming out lately, but some of them have been very successful. And mainly, the criticism from third

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world Asian-American writers is that they're writing, you know, for the white audience only, and they're using that as a form to explain to the white audience, you know, what our culture is about. You know, rather they're almost- it's almost a way of

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creating new myths, you know, rather than dispelling this. It's very dangerous, it's very dangerous. Morton Marcus: So you feel that therefore, you cannot create new myths?

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Jeff Tagami: No, we must dispel all stereotypes and just kind of give the real life of what an Asian-American thinks and feels. Shirley Ancheta: I do a lot of, what is it, mystical, supernatural, or spiritual type of writing and that's how I get

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away with my myth. Morton Marcus: Yes, you see, I was thinking of the myth of the Filipino animal, the carabao, and that, you see, you have re-mythisized it and- Of course, to me, I mean, I do the same

00:32:14.290 - 00:32:32.830

thing in my last book, I go back, and really remake myths. And it doesn't bother me at all. It should have bothered me? Jeff Tagami: No, no, that shouldn't bother you at all. But if you were to create myths about Jewish people, then that

00:32:33.040 - 00:32:41.430

would bother a lot of people. Morton Marcus: Well, I'll bet you that there are Jewish people out there who said that- wh think that I have remade myth of Jewish people and ar probably not happy about it. Bu

00:32:41.430 - 00:32:58.140

it's an interesting question because really, then what are- s something being taken away fr m you, not only as a Filipi Jeff Tagami: No, I don't believe so. I thought that way perhaps o-American poet, or poets her , but as a unique individual? A

00:32:58.140 - 00:33:09.060

d Shirley knew exactly what I as going to get at when I look d at her and she just- when she cut me off at the past there bec use I mean this really gets to e ter the situation. Do you ever feel, let me put it this way, th both of you that you're re

00:33:09.060 - 00:33:36.090

lly not doing- maybe you're n t going all the way back in th se caverns that are inside yo , what you would like to e plore because you've got to t ke another path? at the beginning because- Well, I had a friend, I won't mention

00:33:36.090 - 00:33:50.040

her name also, who's Asian, a Chinese-American writer. And one time she just remarked, "Gee, I wish I was white. I won't have to worry about what I write about," you know, as far a Asian-American audience comin back at her for what she writes

00:33:51.180 - 00:34:08.320

But as the years went on, yo know, I decided that, you kno , having that extra discipline a d watching, you know, what you say and how you write about, it is a good prac Morton Marcus: It's great. It's all- it's almost like your own

00:34:08.320 - 00:34:20.810

kind of metrics, it's a some psychic metric almost. Jeff Tagami: Which causes us to probably not write as much as we should, you know, because we're always you know- there's like checks and balances.

00:34:20.850 - 00:34:31.660

Morton Marcus: Oh, fascinating, yeah. Jeff Tagami: That's been the story for about over ten years. Morton Marcus: Very interesting. Well, let's go on. We left off with you, Jeff. And Shirley, let's hear another real poem

00:34:31.660 - 00:34:56.980

from you. Shirley Ancheta: Okay. This one is entitled, "The Fire." My father died a couple years ago. But when he was still at home and in bed, my brothers and a neighbor were tearing down a

00:34:56.980 - 00:35:15.730

shed and piling all the wood in the field next to our house, they were going to torch it of course. And my father started yelling, "Fire, fire!" and that was two hours before the fire. The fire did happen, we had to call the fire department, they

00:35:15.730 - 00:35:36.100

put out the fire, but just the fact that he did mention fire and slept through the fire reaffirmed my belief that things are truly tangential, that past and future are probably quite the same as opposed to the our linear way of thinking.

00:35:38.280 - 00:35:58.920

When he woke he said, "Fire." The tractor shed was being pulled apart, the plums were darkening in the trees, and those tender wings that opened before us on the pale summer flower lifted and became blue smoke. When my father slept

00:35:58.920 - 00:36:18.510

through the fire that finally arrived, we knew he was moving past us, quickly, into the healing palm of another life. Later that day, we heard footsteps enter and leave his room. And we remembered the elders not alive. They were

00:36:18.510 - 00:36:42.600

preparing for him. We watched the smoke become breath blend into sky. We knew he was waiting for the dark full of trees and the fruit heavy inside his weakening heart. Jeff Tagami: Okay, Jeffrey?

00:36:38.000 - 00:36:57.140

I found a quote from Geoffre Dunn's great book, "Santa Cru Is In the Heart," "To be Filipino in California, observe the late Carey McWilliams in 'Brothers Under the Skin,' is o belong to a blood brotherhood f freemasonry of the ostraciz

00:36:57.800 - 00:37:13.400

d. Their own native cultural val es have been cast aside, yet at he same time and across the wo ld chiasm exists between them nd American Life." Now Will am McCurry also wrote back in the Fifties, that the Filipinos ere a vanishing race. And the re

00:37:13.730 - 00:37:35.420

son he said that was mainly bec use of the laws that were pi ted against Filipinos ike anti-miscegenation laws, w ich prevented them from marr ing whites or anything that was considered Caucasian, w ich included Spanish or Mexican,

00:37:35.420 - 00:37:59.550

and so forth. And which leads m to this poem somehow. It's cal MUSSEL ROCK/LOW TIDE – SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, and this is about Filipinos who were part of that so-called vanishing race that would go to Santa Cruz and kind of like have a cultural

00:37:59.880 - 00:38:17.770

meeting there and- but in the guise of a picnic and so forth. Fog lifting by the fields and camp houses of many windows. In a small cove, the families of Filipinos gather mussels, stooping over rocks that rise up dripping from the low waters.

00:38:18.970 - 00:38:34.960

The girl who suffers from elephantiasis collects starfish, pushing her enormous legs from rock to rock. The boy who grows old before our eyes pokes a stick at the washed up jellyfish. He is a tiny wrinkled man dressed in the clothes of a

00:38:34.960 - 00:38:51.370

child. He moves on to stab the heart of the opening sea anemone. All the old time bachelors off from work join the married men on the rocks, and loosen with crowbars the clinging mussel shells, stacking them into burlap sacks. They're

00:38:51.370 - 00:39:08.200

called names that sound like Kuksong(?), Sippy(?), Caobo(?), Longhan(?), Partik(?). Laughter and the clanging of the pots on the beach, the American wifes start up the fires with driftwood and steam the mussels open. They are happy in their

00:39:08.200 - 00:39:22.840

one-piece bathing suits and hairdos, their hard liquor and gossip. When one bends over the pot, there's a loud popping, and cinders fly out from the fire. Then come the squeals of the other women, pointing to the puckered cup of her bathing

00:39:22.840 - 00:39:40.870

suit, where her falsey had slipped out into the flames. After everyone crowds around the steaming pots to eat, somebody's wife makes a joke about the muscles orange vulva lips and black pubic cilia. The giggle spreads among the women, the

00:39:40.870 - 00:39:57.190

husbands slipping soup, the timid bachelor who blushes and the children asking, "What? What?" Mounds of discarded shells, grandmothers go back to sunning themselves, peeling their thick nylons down ankles. Children drag branches of

00:39:57.220 - 00:40:13.870

balloon-like seaweed through the sand, fathers and mothers drowse, arms wrapped around each other. Sun low on the horizon, the last door slams shut. Tacking in all the tired, the girl clutching starfish to her breast and smelling of the

00:40:13.870 - 00:40:30.280

ocean, the boy dying of old age, who points to the rock slowly submerging, as the waves of his own hair slowly whiten. Along the bumpy road, the cars stir dust that rises and settles on the young heads of brussel sprouts, on the single men

00:40:30.490 - 00:40:46.520

walking home to the bunkhouse and its windows burning now a brilliant orange. So because of the anti-miscegenation laws and things like that, you know, Filipinos were marrying outside

00:40:46.520 - 00:41:02.600

the race. And so the way what Carey McWilliams figured was that they would- you know, their blood would be diluted and then the next generation also marry outside the race and then there wouldn't be any Filipinos left, especially from the bachelor

00:41:02.600 - 00:41:19.910

society, and these were single men who never married and just died without leaving any heirs or anything. But of course, you know, he was wrong, because of the Marcos regime and everything the- it was like an open gates, you know, through immigration

00:41:19.910 - 00:41:33.260

where Filipinos floated through and is now the number one Asian population in California, I think for the last census. Morton Marcus: No kidding? I didn't realize that. I thought Vietnamese might have been that high number, but no.

00:41:33.470 - 00:41:43.460

Shirley Ancheta: No, we're at the top of the list now. Morton Marcus: Hey, congratulations. Shirley Ancheta: We didn't die out. Morton Marcus: It's amazing. I'm turning around looking at this

00:41:43.460 - 00:41:56.300

tape to see that whether it's going down and obviously it's going to end right in the middle of a poem. Well, that is really interesting. So more and more Filipinos are coming over here now. I thought that was an immigration that had stopped.

00:41:56.930 - 00:42:18.100

Shirley, let's hear some more of your poems. If I hold up a hand for a second, then give me a second I just think it should be ending. And it's never ending, I know what I'm going to do Shirley Ancheta: -connect me with Watsonville a little more,

00:42:10.790 - 00:42:36.280

[cut-off]. I was able to see it in a better perspective. This poem is about being grounded to where you come from, a town like Watsonville, to accept the places that we carry around with us.

00:42:36.660 - 00:42:42.620

Morton Marcus: And what's the name of it again? Shirley Ancheta: "Locating the World." Morton Marcus: "Locating the World," sounds like a good title for a book, Shirley.

00:42:44.640 - 00:42:54.810

Shirley Ancheta: Is the tape on the other side now or should I-? [cross talk] Morton Marcus: It's all gone. Shirley Ancheta: Well, that was slick, Mort. Okay. And actually,

00:42:55.440 - 00:43:08.940

after I finished writing this poem, I couldn't believe how long it was because my poems are pretty short. So I actually achieved what I wanted to achieve, a narrative poem, and a poem about Watsonville, and it's the closest I'll ever get to

00:43:09.360 - 00:43:26.170

writing kind of like Jeff. This town where we lived is Main Street without buildings, Mexicans forced to live in tents, their houses pulled by the earth like accordions, a church with a fallen steeple, a

00:43:26.170 - 00:43:45.280

town clock that dropped when the earthquake hit. But wait, I'm a child again, kicking a Coke bottle full of ants, cowboy boots on the wrong feet. I helped my brother gather the soft apples beneath the trees. We stuffed each one with rocks

00:43:45.520 - 00:44:06.280

to throw at the Oakie kids who throw us off our bikes. Together we smell the morning of wet grass, pull carrots to feed our one cow. She carries a calf inside of her. Her eyes, they're past us at the cows in a pasture beyond the trees. Sometimes she

00:44:06.280 - 00:44:24.880

gets loose, and my brother- [I'm sorry.] And my mother will rope her as best she can for a pregnant woman pulling a pregnant cow. The Filipino family on San Andreas Road, strawberry farmers, show interest in our cow. The valley

00:44:24.880 - 00:44:43.960

is a hot fall day with fat cow clouds. It's a sad day when the farmers load our cow in their pickup and drive away. Weeks go by, it is after my baby brother squeals in the next room that my mother tells us the cow has been butchered, the calf still warm

00:44:43.960 - 00:45:02.140

inside her. My brother sits on the old tractor in the shed and refuses to come down. "Pray," she says. I pray rain on the strawberry fields that my cow's meat was tough and stringy, that the dogs that sniffed and tugged at the calf's carcass made

00:45:02.140 - 00:45:17.580

tracks on the highway. My window is a town of yawning cats, crop dusters, and children giving up what belonged to them in hard places. Morton Marcus: And that was the one that was in the Pajaronian,

00:45:17.910 - 00:45:26.230

correct? Shirley Ancheta: That was the one. Morton Marcus: Yes. And anyone out there who says these two poets sound familiar, there was a lovely article done on both of

00:45:26.230 - 00:45:33.370

you in the Pajaronian, which was really, really fine. Beautiful stuff, really great stuff. Shirley Ancheta: Thank you. Morton Marcus: Jeffrey?

00:45:35.460 - 00:45:51.330

Jeff Tagami: I don't have a real preface for this poem, just someone out of memory. It's called: TUDOY(?) and Tudoy is simply a name. He's a Pinoy, and a Pinoy, if you don't know, was one of the first wave of Filipinos who

00:45:51.450 - 00:46:04.990

came to America. The man who called the snakes lived in the trailer and drank rainwater from a metal dipper. He raised a garden of watermelons, which he thumped daily and turned skyward the

00:46:04.990 - 00:46:22.120

pale underbellies to the sun. It was his alone, this power, this calling of the snakes, because he loved all animals and winged things. Even those that devour snakes and those that were devoured. Because of him, ponds teamed with tadpoles, became

00:46:22.120 - 00:46:37.210

dark with a dark swimmings. The nights were filled with green music of frogs and mosquitoes hatched and traveled like dust storms. The man who called the snakes believed in the stories and read the clouds and stars faithfully. Mornings he

00:46:37.210 - 00:46:54.400

sharpened his garden tools and meditated and waited for the snakes to come. And they came underground from dark holes from nearby swamp, skimming over water, out of the tall grasses slithering. He held them in his arms. His eyes reduced to slits

00:46:55.090 - 00:47:10.780

and he let their long tongues touch his lips. The wrapped his legs like vines. Should they die, he took their little bags of bile and hung them to dry in his kitchen until they became the black tea which he drank. He was king of the snakes, and let

00:47:10.780 - 00:47:26.350

children bear witness, for they were pure and did not pass judgment and did not invent fear. The man who called the snakes had no family and so when he died, the power died in him. Reptilian was his face, the skin pulled taught by the power even

00:47:26.350 - 00:47:44.310

in death, [unintelligible] to it, a dream he received it, for he was the chosen one and he was a Filipino, because that must have meant something to someone. Morton Marcus: Well, that might be the perfect poem to end on.

00:47:46.680 - 00:48:05.010

He must have meant something to someone. And tonight's guests are making those lost men, those ghosts who have given us our food and who have worked in the fields endlessly with no name, and no identity for the people who pass in cars and eat the

00:48:05.010 - 00:48:18.420

food at their hands, year after year, plucked from the soil of America, and who lived very lonely lives here. You are giving those people names and identities and it's a very important task and a very important undertaking you're

00:48:18.420 - 00:48:43.500

both doing it very, very meaningfully, and to me much more than that, with a great poignancy, tremendous poignancy. That was Jeff Tagami and Shirley Ancheta-Tagami, two poets of Filipino-American extraction and who are now living back in

00:48:43.530 - 00:48:56.670

Watsonville after living for fourteen years in Santa Cruz. This is Mort Marcus and right before I get out here, I see Leon. Leon, are you going to be on tonight? Oh, Rich Will is going be on tonight, okay.

00:48:58.130 - 00:49:16.610

I'd like to announce the Louden Nelson Center community readings, the Poetry Prose Reading Series October 1991, a special reading and celebration with an exhibit of art and objects for Dia De Los Muertos featuring Cruz Ortiz, Maria

00:49:16.610 - 00:49:34.340

Gallardo, and Francisco X. Alarcon, an open reading to follow. This very exciting evening will be on Friday, October 25th at 7:30pm at the Louden Nelson Community Center. I do urge you to go to that, that really is great, one of my

00:49:34.340 - 00:49:55.430

favorite Dia De Los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. And that same Francisco Alarcon will join yours truly, and the inimitable Linda Fox this Sunday at Kokomo Java's, which is right next to Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz. That's this Sunday at 7:30 for a poetry

00:49:55.430 - 00:50:10.400

reading of new poems by the three of us. We look forward to seeing you there. I want to remind you also that this is a quiet drive. Shh, don't tell anyone, but get to the phone while no one is listening or talking and call KUSP and say,

00:50:10.400 - 00:50:34.190

we want to be a subscriber for $35, or for the Book of the Week Club which is $52, or for $45, you get to be a subscriber and get a cassette recording for that. And the numbers to call are 476-2800, 476-2800, or if you're out of Santa Cruz,

00:50:34.250 - 00:51:13.700

1-800-695-KUSP or 5877. 1-800-695-5877. Jeffrey and Shirley, thank you very much. I'll be seeing in two weeks. My son, Joe Stroud, will be here next week. Be well, enjoy. You too can become part of the Supreme Court. [Laughter]