Imperial (226 page)

16. Fred Cagle—Audubon Society spokesman. Interviewed by telephone, 2001.

17. Carl Calvert—Restorer at the Motor Transport Museum in Campo. Interviewed there, October 2003. Terrie Petree was present.

18. Carmen Carillo—Grape picker who lived in Northside, possibly in Holtville, but she did not say. She looked to be in her mid-thirties. Interviewed in Calexico, 2003. Her friend Susana Caudillo was present, as was Lupe Vásquez.

19. Carlos—Multiply deported
pollo.
Mid-thirties? Interviewed in Mexicali, 1999.

20. Old Carlos—My name for him, to distinguish him from other Carloses. In fact he was ancient. “You just want to take a photo of me because I’m a relic. I don’t like people.” Interviewed very briefly in El Mayor Indígenas Cucapá, 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

21. Juan Carlos Martínez Caro—Policeman in Mexicali. Late thirties? Interviewed at the station in Mexicali, 2005.

22. Mr. and Mrs. José Castro—Mrs. Castro did not give me her name. Both in late middle age. He was born in Mexicali, and she came from Sonora. Residents of Ejido Netzahualcóyotl (east of Mexicali) since 1970, when they built their house. Interviewed in 2004. Terrie Petree interpreted.

23. Susana Caudillo—Grape picker who lived in Holtville. She looked to be in her mid-thirties. Interviewed in Calexico, 2003. Her friend Carmen Carillo was present, as was Lupe Vásquez.

24. Francisco Cedeño—Ex-policeman, born in 1972. Composer of ballads about narcotraffickers and also about his policewoman wife. Interviewed at home in Colonia Luiso Blanco, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

25. Hermenegildo Pérez Cervantes—Born in 1924. Retired teacher. Fifty years of service. Interviewed in the Casa Cultura in Mexicali, December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.

26. Border Patrolwoman Gloria Chavez—Younger. Interviewed in Chula Vista and along the border while on patrol, 1999. Lizzy Kate Gray was present.

27. Cameron and Diana Chino—He was Native American (Quechan), and his wife, who was Caucasian, had spent some of her girlhood on the reservation, where they now lived in a house of their own. Interviewed in December 2006. Terrie Petree was present.

28. Herb Cilch—Worked for the Bureau of Reclamation from 1948 to 1950, surveying the lower Colorado River. Interviewed in San Diego, 2003.

29. Carolyn Cooke—Director of the Coachella Historical Society. Arrived in Coachella in 1957, probably as a newlywed. Worked as a bookkeeper-accountant for a major grape grower in Coachella for twenty-three years. Interviewed in Indio, 2004.

30. Cookies—Heavyset cantina prostitute. Probably younger than she looked. The mother of two. Interviewed in Mexicali over dinner with her colleague María, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

31. José Rigoberto Cruz Córdoba—Workman. He was concreting over the Río Nuevo when I interviewed him in Mexicali in 2001. Rebeca Hernández interpreted.

32. Antonia Torres Cucapá—Fortyish, Cucapah, interviewed in her yard on the reservation in the Mexicali Valley, 2003. Her sisters, Juana Torres Glez Cucapá and Jaziel Soto Torres Cucapá, also put in some words. Terrie Petree interpreted.

33. Eugene Dahm—Elderly Imperial County farmer who remembered Mexicali in the 1940s. Interviewed in 2002 at the Imperial County Historical Society Pioneers Museum along with another “pioneer,” the latter being from Heber, who chose not to be named.

34. Mr. D.—Private investigator based in San Rafael. Specialized in infiltrating
maquiladoras.
Interviewed and hired by me in 2004. He went to Tijuana to find the four or five worst
maquiladoras
he could and gave me contact information. His name is on file at the California State Archives.

35. Jacob Dickinson—My college classmate and longtime friend. He married a fellow mechanical engineer and raised a family in Long Beach. Interviewed in various areas of Greater Los Angeles in 1997-2007. He was pushing fifty at the end of this period.

36. Pascuala Saiz Domínguez—Fullbooded Cucupah who claimed to be 115 years old when I interviewed her in the Mexicali Valley in 2003. Lupe Vásquez interperpreted.

37. Employee of the State Commission of Public Services in Mexicali—Elderly man interviewed in his yard in Colonia Santo Niño (southwest of Mexicali Valley), in 2004, Terrie Petree interpreting. Declined to have his name printed in this book.

38. Karina D. Duarte Gonzales—Her family owned a
joyería
in Mexicali’s Chinesca. She and her sister provided brave company on an exploration of the Chinese tunnel in their store. She was in her late twenties or early thirties. Interviewed and photographed in June 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

39. Old man from Durango—His son was having difficulty with his heart which might become a medical emergency, so the old man had come to visit him. Unfortunately his money was now running out, so he would have to return to Durango. “No, I don’t like it here,” he said, slowly gesturing up and down (he had shoulders like bull), “because I’m a farmer and I like to be where there’s work. From what I hear, there
is
work, especially in the
ejidos
out near Kilometer Fifty-seven, but I have no money to go there.” Interviewed in San Luis Río Colorado, December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.

40. Emily—Dance hall girl, slender and twenty-four, with four children. She preferred to call herself a “waitress.” Interviewed at her place of work, the Thirteen Negro in Mexicali, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

41. Elvira—Addicted street prostitute with a wrecked-up face. Interviewed in Mexicali, 1996-99. After this I never saw her again; the other girls informed me that she had been murdered. I loved her very much.

42. The fifty-year-old woman in Jacumba—A retired real estate broker. She did not want her name used. I wrote down her remarks verbatim. Interviewed in Jacumba, July 2004.

43. Mr. and Mrs. Claude Finnell—Mrs. Finnell did not give me her name (which research indicates to be Geraldine). Mr. Finnell (born probably in 1925) was the Imperial County Agricultural Commissioner from 1954 through 1986. Now retired from that position, he worked as a lobbyist for the Metropolitan Water District. Interviewed in El Centro, 2004.

44. Señor Ramón Flores—Mexicali resident since 1937 who lived in smell’s reach of the Río Nuevo. Diabetic; legless. Interviewed in 2001. Rebeca Hernández interpreted.

45. Señora Teresa García—The woman of the house at Rancho Garcia in Colonia Sieto de Cierro Prieto, about twenty kilometers south of Mexicali. Born on this ranch in 1940. Her parents came here in 1936 or 1937. Interviewed in 2004. Terrie Petree interpreted.

46. Ray Garnett—Proprietor of Ray’s Salton Sea Guide Service, born
circa
1923. Had been eating Salton Sea fish since 1955, “and I’m still here, so there’s nothin’ wrong with ’em.” Interviewed on the Salton Sea and on the New River, 2001.

47. Tirso Geraldo—Worked in a juice-squeezing business in San Luis Río Colorado, where he was born. Interviewed in 2003, when he was 21.

48. Juana Torres González—Fortyish Cucapah lady, interviewed in her yard on the reservation in the Mexicali Valley, 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

49. Sergio Rivera Gómez—A labor official, or technically
Asesor Legal de la
Federación Local CROC Mexicali. Youngish. Interviewed in his office in 2003, Terrie Petree interpreting.

50. Larry Grogan—Proprietor of Valley Pawn in El Centro. Born in 1942. His term as Mayor of El Centro had just ended when I interviewed him in 2003; he was about to run for Supervisor.

51. Carlos Guillermo Baja Terra—Driver-guide to whom I was referred by the Mexicali Tourist Office, 28 September 2003. He was thirty-three.

52. Guillermo—Originally from the state of Guerrero, he had been in San Luis Río Colorado since 1982. In early middle age. Interviewed there in a park in November 2003, Terrie Petree interpreting.

53. Alma Rosa Hernández and Hugo Heriberto Herrera—Both young adults; he was younger than she. Interviewed in her house or theirs in Ejido Netzahualcóyotl, December 2006, Terrie Petree interpreting.

54. Rebeca and Susana Hernández—Sisters; “border girls” in their early twenties. Rebeca was a choreographer. Interviewed in Mexicali and Calexico, 2001 and 2002.

55. Ray House—Worked in the Indio Date Festival for fifty years starting in 1947. Interviewed in Indio, July 2004.

56. Sabine Huynen—Representative of the Salton Sea Database Project, University of Redlands. Interviewed by telephone, 2001.

57. Alfonso Rodríguez Ibarra—
Programador
(network programmer) at Radiorama Mexicali, an umbrella organization for two AM and three FM stations. Interviewed in his office, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

58. Carmen Jaham—Elderly Chinese-Mexican mestiza who went to school in a tunnel under what is now the Methodist church on Avenida Juarez, Mexicali. Owner of a small chain of shoe stores; widow. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

59. Juan the crackhead—Youngish. Connected to
pollos
and coyotes. Interviewed in Mexicali, 1999.

60. Julio—mid- to late thirties, campesino, panhandler and drunk, interviewed in English in Calexico, July 2005. Information from our conversation also appears in my book
Poor People
(Ecco, 2007). Micheline Marcom was present.

61. Karla—Young street prostitute from one of the
colonias
south of Mexicali. Interviewed in Mexicali, February 2004.

62. Edith Karpen—Retired schoolteacher, born
circa
1910. Came to Calipatria in 1933; also lived in El Centro, Calexico and on a ranch near Signal Mountain. Mother of Alice Woodside. Interviewed in Sacramento, 2004. She died in 2006.

63. Tom Kirk—Head of the Salton Sea Authority. Interviewed by telephone, 2001.

64. Leonard Knight—Creator of Salvation Mountain, born 1931 in Vermont; arrived in Niland in 1986. Interviewed at the mountain (near Niland), 1997-2005.

65. Art and Helen La Londe—Moved from Riverside to the Coachella Valley in 1945. Interviewed in Indio, July 2004.

66. Leonardo—A pimp specializing in hypothetical young girls and nonexistent Chinese tunnels. A man of his word; a perfect human being. He usually worked in Tijuana. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2003.

67. Steve Leung—AKA Esteban León. Middle-aged photo-store owner; third-generation Chinese immigrant and high-ranking member of the Sam Yap Association. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2003-05.

68. Beatriz Limón—Reporter for
La Crónica
in Mexicali. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2003. Lupe Vásquez and José López interpreted.

69. Carmen Lopez—Aged twelve. Wanted to be a cheerleader. Interviewed in Duroville, Riverside County, 2004.

70. Jose Lopez—Field worker, hotel clerk, ex-Marine, born in Mexicali. In his thirties. Rafted the New River with me. Interviewed in Calexico and Mexicali, 2001.

71. José López from Jalisco—Actually born in Mexicali. Ex-field worker and multiply deported
pollo.
When I knew him, he made his living offering his services to gringos a few steps into Mexico. His wife and children remained in Jalisco. In 2004 he stopped being homeless and began renting a room, but I cannot say for how long. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2002-5.

72. Lourdes—
Maquiladora
worker interviewed in La Jolla Industrial Park, Tijuana, 2004. Terrie Petree interpreted. This nineteen-year-old woman, who gave me a copy of her medical report to insert into this book, had developed TB, she believed as a result of breathing the glue when assembling radio speakers at the Maquiladora Formosa. She bravely employed the button camera to covertly film a
maquiladora,
but the camera failed.

73. Javier Lupercio—Field worker with papers, born in Mexicali in 1945. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2004. Terrie Petree interpreted.

74. Lupita—Middle-aged parking lot attendant in Mexicali; formerly worked at a dance club. Interviewed in 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

75. María—Chunky cantina prostitute. Middle-aged, with five children. Interviewed in Mexicali over dinner with her colleague Cookies, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

76. Mario—Longtime waiter at the Thirteen Negro dance hall in Mexicali. He appeared to be in early middle age, but may have been older. Interviewed at work, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

77. Middle-aged Mexican-American woman in Salton City—Declined to give her name. Interviewed in December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.

78. Olga Liria Márquez—Resident of Colonia Colorado No. 4, which is about fifteen kilometers southeast of Mexicali. She had lived here thirty-one years and was a housewife and mother. Had visited her uncles in Indio, La Quinta, Bakersfield; had taken her children to Disneyland. Was very happy where she was. Interviewed in 2004. Terrie Petree interpreted.

79. Francisco Manuel Preciado Martínez—Resident of San Luis Río Colorado; fifty-two years old. Disconsolate at having been deported and having also suffered the disappearance of his wife, he lived in the street. Interviewed in December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.