Packing House, Orange, California, circa 1948
by Rosemary Vasquez Tuthill and Emigdio Vasquez (2015).
Last week I had a speaking engagement at the Hilbert Museum of California Art. Before the event, I had a few moments to wander through the collection. Amidst the images of coastal views and city landscapes, a painting of women packing oranges caught my eye: Six smiling Mexican American women, hair done up stylishly, a feeling of camaraderie in the workplace.
We didn’t have canneries in Chicago, but the women reminded me of my maternal grandmother, Claudia Fabian, who would have been similar in age. Born in Mexico in 1918, Claudia completed school in eighth grade and married her sweetheart at age eighteen, only to be tragically widowed a few years later. She came to the US in her late twenties after marrying her second husband, my grandfather. Claudia fearlessly navigated unfamiliar customs undertaken in a new language and bustling urban landscape. She raised bilingual and bicultural children; the cramped apartment my grandparents rented were filled with the competing sounds of Motown and mariachi, and the smells of traditional American roast turkey at Thanksgiving followed by Mexican turkey mole at Christmas. On top of her domestic duties and caring for her immediate family and extended relatives, she helped make ends meet by working “at the peanuts,” i.e. a candy factory, putting in long days like the women in the packing house. She had a wonderful, distinctive laugh and was never without lipstick and earrings.
Whenever I am consumed by work-related stress and in need of a reframe, I think of my strong and beautiful grandmother and the sheer weight of what she carried each day, literally and metaphorically. It grounds me and puts my dramas into greater perspective; it serves as a reminder that academia is hardly the center of the world.
We are in the middle of Womxn’s History Month, and I encourage you to reflect on the generations of womxn who shaped your family, however you define it. What were their strengths? What were their daily challenges and small joys? What gifts, traditions, and legacies do you carry forward because of them?
Not all barrier breakers make it into the history books. Yet we know that generations of womxn showed up, rolled up their sleeves, and got to work. And whenever we say their names and recall their faces, we have the opportunity to honor them.
Sincerely,
Magdalena L. Barrera
Vice Provost for Faculty Success
