ABSTRACT
As my grandmother and I approached the corner store just before daybreak, a fire flickered in a battered, old steel drum. The people huddled around the fire, their heads wrapped or hooded against the damp morning chill, were our neighbors. Nodding in unspoken, respectful greeting, they stepped aside and opened the circle so that we could take our places beside them. I was about 9 or 10 years old, and my head and shoulders barely reached my grandmother's elbow as I stood next to her. We were in Stockton, California, in the rich agricultural heartland of the San Joaquin Valley. These people and their families, like mine, had come from Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, and Louisiana where they had known my grandmother long before I was born. We were there early that morning in the semi-darkness to wait for the rickety bus that would take us to the fields outside of town. Some days we went to `cut' onions (which meant pulling them up out of the ground, cutting off the tops, stuffing them into burlap sacks, and dragging the sacks over to the weighing stand to be paid a few cents for each sack). This was hot, back-breaking, dirty work that people with no other options were paid very little to do. That day we were going to pick strawberries, and we were in the field working by sunrise. It was a wonderful day for me because I was going to work with my grandmother and share the special status that she enjoyed. I recall how the people stepped aside when we passed because my grandmother, whom everyone called, `Miss Chicken', was someone special in our community. Later, I understood some of the reasons why my diminutive grandmother commanded such respect and power in our community. She could read and write but my grandmother did not complete elementary school. Yet, she owned not just her own homeÐwhich she had helped to buildÐbut several other houses where our relatives lived as well. Still, we were not prosperous but working people
like our neighbors. My grandmother was also one of the best workers around: No matter what crop was being cut, picked, or chopped, she always kept ahead of everyone else in the field. When I was older, my grandmother explained to me how she became such a fast worker. In Oklahoma, when my grandfather was in prison, she was working in the cotton field alone to feed their five young children. Two ex-convicts made up their minds to help her. They used to put her in the row between them and chop alternately in her row and theirs, so she could make more money. Working in coordination with them, she swung her hoe in time with their rhythm and, matching their cadence, she kept up with them. Despite her small stature, she developed the speed, stamina, and accuracy to set the same pace for other workers.
