Diversity: Rejecting the Old Rules by Resisting the New Ones

Nikki
Trionfo

I got my first taste of L-O-V-E in 1995. Grapes of Wrath stole my sixteen-year-old California-girl heart. I was like, “You go, depression-era workers!” In their honor, I turned my back on land-owning cheats, even ones still alive. It wasn’t hard. Growers were white and old and grumpy. Field workers—mostly Hispanic—had Maná and La Macarena on their side. I was down, ese’. I was even enrolled in Spanish III. I felt awesome for three seconds.
Then realized I was the granddaughter of a white, land-owning California grower.
My white-haired grandpa gave me thumbs-up during most of my tennis matches and already had the cancer that would kill him. He wanted to live to see me get married. He would make it. Barely.
I didn’t simply feel dumb for my thoughts. A part of my childhood–the black-and-white part–died.
White growers were bad. Grandpa was a grower. Grandpa wasn’t bad.
It turned out Grandpa’s father was raising cattle during the depression and sneaked into the prosperity of the WWII era with only a quarter of his land, selling off the rest to feed three generations.
I was relieved. That was the answer, right? My family fell into the “good” side of a desperate struggle in a desperate time because they lived in relative poverty.

Read the entire article in the May 2019 issue of InD'Tale magazine.

You can just click on the magazine image on the left hand side of our home page to open and enjoy!

OR

If you would like to receive the magazine every month (for FREE!) , just sign up on our home page. Once you do, an e-mail validation notice will be sent directly to you. Just open and click the link and you're in - forever!  Each month the magazine will be delivered directly to your inbox to downlad and read!