My Own Puño de Tierra. Galarza Documentaries.

Red Is the Color Dreams Are Made On

Michael Sedano

I have lived in many places that I called home because those were places where, when I went there, they had to take me in, and because I had no other place to go, and because my heart was there. Home.

My hometown of Redlands, California, holds a special niche in my personal definition of “home.” My heart is there, the house in the orange groves, the hillside house through junior high, a teenage boy in puppy love with a girl, a student making good marks and winning speech contests, a chameleon’s existence moving back and forth between raza  cultura and anglo society. Redlands.

Anglo Redlands was a complex place whose astonishing experiences with racism betrayed the character of the town’s everyday gente, like that song, “dear hearts and gentle people.” 

My Dad, with Mom's help, built our first house on a dirt street one street over from where he grew up. The street dead-ended next door, and the groves started growing all the way to the wash. The sign at the city limits claimed Redlands had 20,000 people and was the navel orange growing capital of the world. Harry S. Truman was president.

From 5th to 9th grade, my folks had a house on the other side of town, with a view because Dad always wanted a view of those groves where he’d worked many hours, before Civil Service. 

Jobs at Norton AFB allowed Mom and Dad to build their dream home on a spectacular view lot at the city limits. I was in High School. Home sat on hard, rich, red tierra, solid like the ties that bound us to the land.

When I sold the house, I walked the lot one last time where I’d labored with my Dad to lay cement slabs and dig hillside trails, move rocks, turn the home’s fallow earth, leveled planting beds to cultivate its richness. 

I walked over to where Dad built an horno. He dug up some dirt, made mud bricks, fashioned the horno, plastered and smoothed the outside with more mud. The horno was the center of family celebrations, after banqueting on barbacoa, lounge in the warmth from the open oven and laugh and sing.

That’s where I found my clod of home, where Dad built the horno. My puño de tierra is that red dirt giving Redlands its name and is the stuff dreams are made on.

El día que yo me muera, no voy a llevarme nada

Hay darle gusto al gusto, la vida pronto se acaba

Lo que pasó en este mundo, nomás el recuerdo queda

Ya muerto voy a llevarme, nomás un puño de tierra

Un Puño de Tierra, Ramón Ayala

Early In Our History, Ernesto Galarza

Audiences at Occidental College will have opportunity to view a film composite of all five episodes produced by Jesus Treviño on March 24 in Choi Auditorium at 6 p.m. Two of the episodes are yours for a click or two at Latinopia.com. 

Galarza blazed many trails for Chicanos in high places doing good work back in the days when so few of us held pivotal social roles, Galarza had to be activist, diplomat, labor organizer, author and educator. 

Thanks to Latinopia.com's generosity making these, and an extensive library of film and essay covering arts, literature, history, music, activism, regional views, el movimiento, notables. The site is updated every Sunday with back issues easily obtained.