Miguel

Miguel

Oral history from Texas to Kansas City, KS.

Miguel is a queer Latinx writer who draws from his background as a farmworker in Texas. He currently lives in Kansas City where he aspires to help future generations of Latinxs tell their stories. Listen to his oral history to learn more about what it means to make a place your own via storytelling.

Marta Caminero-Santangelo

Miguel

English

Video

Miguel (M)
Marta (MC)

M: So Tomás Rivera, really, the only interaction that I've had with his work is the film that they made from, you know, from his short story. And that just blew me away. I'm like, I know these people. These are my uncles and my aunts, and I know that I mean, my type of farmwork wasn't as grueling and migratory as theirs was, but I know those type of people who are hard working and everything, his mom.

M: But then the users and, you know, the opportunists that were like the doñas that took care of him and buried people in the, you know, that's just crazy story. But yeah, I mean, that runs the range in the community. So I remember watching that film, like, Wow. That's a story that .

M: That's like my story to know because when I was little, the closest thing that I knew to farm workers was Little House on he Prairie. So so I read all those books, and I'm like, It's not the same, but they're farmworking kids. So. But yeah, that's really all I knew.

M: And whenever I tried to look for his work, it was always in Spanish, and I don't speak or read Spanish. I'm like, I know I'm missing a lot of stuff. So I'm just going to write the story that I know. And actually, that story came from a poem that I wrote about my mom called “Madre de los campos.” And I read that for Okay, you used to have this organization this program called Harvest of Hope Leadership Academy, and they would bring migrant kids from all over the state, and they would go there for like three weeks.

M: And one year, they asked us at the collective to come and be mentors and give a talk to them. And I thought, Okay, these kids were farm workers like I was, and I've never really spoken about this. So I'm going to write a poem and I'm going to read it to them.

M: And I got to let them know that this is real, that I'm not bullshitting them. They're going to be like, Oh, it gets better. I'll be okay. You're hard working people, you know, that's all true, but they don't want to hear that all the time.

M: So I wrote I wrote in the poem how my mom, I just was like, really mad at my mom because we were farm workers, and you know, the farmer would cheat us out of money, and she would pay other people. And I was like, I'm never going to be as stupid as her.

M: And the room just got quiet.

M: And I'm like, Oh, that's the unspoken truth that we all farmworker kids have is that we love when we hate our parents, and you're never supposed to say anything bad about your mom, but I did it. And so then I continued on with my poem.

M: And then I just heard some sobbing and crying, and I was like, I started wiping out my face. And when we were done, we just all started crying because it was like, The saw me and I saw them, and there was a real moment.

M: It wasn't any of this like, Oh, if you work really hard, you can leave the field. It was like, this is just the reality of what it is to be a farmworking kid.

M: I'm not going to tell you anything more or anything less. I'm just telling you that I know and I see. And so, after that. He gave him some books of Sandra Cisneros, she had come to the Kansas City Public Library, and we had a whole bunch of books and all these kids are like, Would you sign my book? I'm like, I can't That's Sandra’s book but please, would you? I'm like, Okay.

M: So there's some books out there with my signature Sandra Cisnero’s House on Mango Street.

M: But that was when I realized, Okay, I need to turn this into a short story because we're going to do the Cuentos del Centro. And so I expanded it and filled it out as much as I could. And then I started thinking, Well, I still want to do more poetry about farm work because clearly, there's something in me and it resonated with these kids.

M: So even if I just write it from them every year, I go back and I just read them two or three poems, I want new things to write with them. So that's kind of what happened. And whenever I write, I always think of those kids, they're my first audience.

M: My farm worker kids are my first audience that I write for whether I write for being queer or being old and being a fat guy. I'm just writing for them because they need to know that this exists in our community.

M: So they're always my first audience.

MC: That's really fascinating to hear that Latino farm kids are your first audience that's.

M: Yeah. I mean, because it's a kid that's when I needed a voice in my head to say, this is what you can do. And so I'm kind of locked into that nurture that person that's in you. But then I see them right in front of me. And I still do some mentoring in Waverly, Missouri. We go to the Apple orchards and talk to the kids, and they have an after school program.

M: And we just have these conversations and they tell me crazy things that have gone on in the fields and with the brothers and sisters and I'm like, Oh, my gosh. Yes. I remember those things.

M: Talking to them makes me remember more because I was ashamed for a long time to be a farm worker. So I just pushed it down.

M: And I remember I worked at this place in KCK called Harvest America. Their target group was migrant seasonal farm workers, and I worked there, and I never told any of them that I was a farm worker. I worked there for three years, and I I never told them because I just forgot. I just completely wiped it out of my memory.

M: And every day I would go in and there would be a long line of people waiting to get services, and their kids would be in the hallway. And now as an adult, I thought, why didn't I just take a moment or two just to talk to those kids and say, I know it's tough, but, you know, I know what you're saying.

M: But I never did.

M: And so then when I got the chance to do that for the kids at the KU program, I'm like, I'm not going to miss this opportunity. I missed it once, and now it's my chance.

M: So now that people don't get another chance to say what they need to say. So I did and I just figured, well, I'm just going to keep on saying what I need to say. So…

MC: Can you tell me in brief. So you were a farm worker in the Midwest?

M: No. I was a farmworker in Texas, in the Texas Panhandle area. Yeah, child labor. Yeah. And.

MC: Yeah, wow. God. Is the story “Hijo con filo” supposed to be set in Texas?

M: In my mind, it is, but I don't think I put a setting for it. I don't think I do. Yeah. But Kansas and Texas are very similar. The land is very similar. You would think that Kansas is flat, but it's got a lot of hills and valleys, the Texas panhandle is the same way; people think, Oh, it's just all flat, but it's got canyons and hills and valleys.

M: Sometimes when I'm driving across Kansas, I'll be like, Oh, this looks like mo this looks like Palo Verde Canyon, this looks and I just start remembering all these places that are in the Texas Panhandle.

M: And the people are kind of the same, you know, the racism is a little more over in Texas. And here, it's a little more subtle. They wrap it up in Midwest nice, but it's still the same degree.

[both laugh]

MC: You know, it's still the same. It's so funny. You know, Tomas Rivera, who's always associated with South Texas wrote this essay that no one knows about where he called the Great Plains a utopia. Like he had these I don't know, rose colored glasses when it came to the Midwest.

MC: Maybe it was about Midwest nice and the less overt racism here. But he said something like, you know, in the Great Plains, we were working with people instead of for people.

MC: It sounds like you grew up in Texas, right?

M: Yeah. I grew up in Texas and in my 20s. I moved to the Kansas City area.

M: But, you know, those early 20s are very formative years where you kind of set the path of your life. So I kind of was I grew up physically and mentally in Texas, but I came here and kind of found my path.

M: I really just came here Kansas is a really Kansas City is a really great transitional place. So if you want to go to a bigger city, you can have that experience of living in a city. But if you want to go back to living in a rural area, you still have enough ruralness to it that you can you know, it's not that difficult of a switch.

M: So it's really one of those unique places that it's both a big city and a small town. And I kind of just like, Well, I like the conveniences of all the big city and the culture that comes with it, although it's not always Latino culture.

M: And then I kind of like the driving out a little bit and kind of seeing some fields and some planes and stuff like that. It's kind of very settling. I mean, there's nothing like seeing a big wide Texas sunrise, but Kansas comes really close. If you find it like an open space, it just takes up the whole sky. So yeah.

MC: Sunsets are gorgeous here.

M: Mm hm.

MC: What brought you here?

M: My oldest sister got married and his family was living here in Kansas and she was going to have a baby and it was the first baby. So everybody moved up to be there around the baby.\

M: And then everybody's moved away and I'm the last one here and I'm like, Well, I guess I'm like I put enough time in this area. I like, This is my home.

M: This is my place.

M: I mean, I love Texas, but I could never live there again because the politics is just too crazy, and I don't think I could deal with that overt racism again anymore. And that would get me in trouble. That would give me in trouble.

M: But my family lives in Orlando and I don't think that's where I'll go, but, you know, you want to go where your family is as you get older, some, who knows? Who knows?

MC: Yeah. Florida is a pretty dismal state too. It is.

M: The politics are awful, but you know family. Just as awful.

MC: So here's a question that I've been thinking about. You know, I talked to José Faus, who is also a founding member and to that and he's a muralist and I can understand how murals change the place and make it more Latino, right? Like incorporate Latino history.

MC: Here's the question I'm struggling with. Can writing like the writing of Cuentos del Centro, can writing also change a particular place and make a place for Latino in Kansas City?

M: I think it can because before the Latino Writers Collective, there really wasn't storytelling from our culture. It was just people having parties and drinking, and then they would tell stories that way. This kind of came a more formalized way of telling stories, and it was just really a way for us to work on our own work and try and get each other like, Hey, there's a place you can get published here.

M: We really weren't, as far as I know, really big into doing public readings and stuff, but people wanted it because they'd never really seen it before. And so we do, Okay, we'll do it. It'll give us a chance to polish our reading skills and you get a tight lineup and learn how to do all that kind of stuff.

M: And so we did.

M: And then people just kept inviting us to do stuff. And especially around young people, schools, that we would get teachers who says, Hey, the only Latino in our school is the janitor. Would you guys come and talk to these kids be like a role model?

M: So then our readings took on another dimension of, now, we have to be role models and mentors and try and lift the community while we're still right.

M: So it wasn't ever just about, hey, I'm going to read some poems, and thank you very much. It's like, there's an extra layer of responsibility like multiple layers because you're trying to make the place better for kids and role model for them, but then they put yourself too high on a pedestal because then they're like, why, I'll never be like that. But my grades aren't good enough.

M: So whenever I would read, I'd say, I know writing and reading may not be your thing. Maybe math is your thing. And then you just go for it. You tell your story and numbers and math. I said, writing is my thing. Math is not my thing. I'm bad at math and science, but some of you are good on those things. So whatever it is that you're good at, you tell your story to that.

M: And then they would say, Oh, okay, because some kids they don't want to write because they think they're like a baby or they don't I know they just have trouble when you think about, oh, some writers are going to come in and I don't want to do this.

M: But then we tell stories and sometimes they want to tell stories. I'm like, you don't have to write it down. I don't care about the grammar.

M: Just tell me the story that you want to tell.

M: Okay. And then they tell a really good story. I don't get caught up on the grammar. That's just we can fix that later if you want to write it down. So once you do that, you can kind of they can recognize that they have story within them, and being able to express that story or tell that story, it really does.

M: It changes the place.

M: It changes the way you view the place.

M: It's like another way of that you're giving yourself permission to kind of expand beyond your body and your family, you can expand by telling the story. And that story goes to who knows whose ears it goes to, and they take it, they can accept it or reject it, but they can't hear it.

M: So that's how story changes place here because you just tell enough of our stories and it will embed in people's story, whether they want to or not.

M: Yeah. So I think story really can change your place. And if you can couple it with art, murals and festivals and all these things, there's all these other sensory things that come and they link what story is together.

M: So there's artists community and they always focus on visual art and they don't include words or music– that really makes me sad because they're not getting the connection that these are all connected together, and people relate in different ways to different things. Some people are visual. Some people like to hear the rhythm. Some people actually like to have rhythm as in music.

M: So they're really segmenting the society as a part of the culture that they want to engage, whether it's just paintings or an art show.

M: That's why I really enjoy the Latino Arts Festival because they have food and drink and low writers and storytellers. It's just a whole day where you're like, every sense of you is engaged. So yeah. And that's how you change, you know, you make a place you are.

M: You can change the perception. Even the perception that you have about a place,...

MC: I can so tell that you're a writer just for play expressions. It's so beautiful. Have you seen changes in the place? In your time here? In Kansas.

M: I have seen because when we first started the collective, I think there was about 12 of us. No, no, there was more because they had just put out their first book, the Primera Página.

M: I think they had about 30 people. But a lot of people when they write and they get published they're like, Okay, that was it. That's all they ever wanted just have my name on a book, and I'm done.

M: Then after that book came out, it fell to 12 people and then five people, and it would fluctuate, but I could see that there was a core group of probably about seven people who were constantly showing up and wanting to improve the work and looking for places to write and publish. And then another person would come and join.

M: And so I could see how we were growing our numbers and we were teaching each other, so that the skills that we were sharing changed the literary landscape in Kansas City for us because people started to recognize us and want us to be part of their, you know, riverfront reading series.

M: All these places that were closed off to us before, where if we were just individuals, they would say, thanks but no thanks. But since we were, you know, we had a good 10 people, you know, in our stable of talent, they would say, Oh, okay, we can do a whole evening, and that'll fulfill our diversity, whatever.

M: But then when we got there, we blew their pants off. I mean, we just blew their minds. And then they would ask us to come back. And not just for Hispanic Heritage month or Cinco de Mayo, but just in other parts and other times.

M: And then there were some local publishers who wanted to publish some chapbooks from members, and there's people who I think if it hadn't been for the collective, they wouldn't be published authors. So I know it has changed the place that way.

M: The collective has kind of fallen to the wayside now. It barely exists. I think just in name only.

M: And I really would hope that somebody could revive that. I really was hoping that, you know, it could go back into a nonprofit and do some grant writing and we could do all those mentor things that we used to do for free, and now there's funds for. Because back then, there wasn't funds to do all the stuff that we do.

M: So I hope it has another life in it.

M: If not for any other reason, then it's part of our history. I think it's probably been in existence for about 20 years, so you can't let something like that die, you know?

MC: I would really I mean, on a personal level, I would really I would love to see a revival where a new generation of aspiring Latinx writers.

M: Yeah.

MC: Were mentored by you all.

M: Yeah. We were kind of you know? Yeah, yeah. We were kind of moving in that direction. But then there was a little split in the collective where we had Spanish-speaking members who didn't want to engage in English, and some of us who don't speak don't speak Spanish, were kind of feeling like, Okay, well, we're not getting as much attention as we used to.

M: So there was a whole struggle there.

M: And then the collective put out an anthology that was just totally Spanish speaking, which was great, and I think it won some awards, and it really opened the door even further that, not only can we talk about culture, we can talk in the language that we choose to.

M: And then after that, we were going to do an anthology of LGBTQ Latinx writers. We started putting that together, and then the collectives kind of dissipated.

M: But that project always had some pushback. Some people didn't want to do it for religious reasons, and I was like, look, you guys got the Spanish anthology. I was the president at the time. I could have nixed that because the queer anthology was the next one up, but there were more Spanish-speaking members and there were people who would admit that they were queer.

M: I said, Let's do the Spanish speaking one so that way we can engage everybody. And then if we do the queer anthology, we can have some dual language that's going on.

M: But when it came time for that project to happen, it just didn't happen. And it was sad because there were some young people in their 20s and 30s who really were, like, excited about this project.

M: And then the collective just kind of folded.

M: I'm like, Oh, we could have had that project out because I was going to be my vision for that anthology was going to be it's a book that your tía could read on the bus. And she could just have the cover and read it and she wouldn't be naked people on the cover. Just something that she could learn and read about her grandkids or her nephews or whatever, and know more about what is this gay stuff? I don't know what's going on and just read stories from people who are from the community here in Kansas or at least in the Midwest.

M: So that way it is not about people from California or New York because those are places that don't exist here, right? It's just some of this is in this Midwest area, specifically Kansas City.

M: It would be people that they know or that they heard of our families that they've heard of who would be telling these stories. So I thought that would be an impact in itself. It didn't happen. I hope that it still does happen. It may be maybe after the anthology project.

MC: Yeah. I have a niece. Well, okay. So what's the word the non-gender word I looked it up. I can't remember. There's a non gender word for east nephew. But I can't remember now because my brain.

Yeah. But I have a child of my sister who is not gender binary.

MC: And explaining that to my 95 year-old father, you know, is impossible.

M: Yeah.

MC: Oh, my God to hear a story. I really. Oh, my gosh. I would love I would so love to see a collection like that. Yeah.

M: Yeah, I mean, and that was like ten years ago that we had this I'm like, because I think one of my abilities as a writer is I can spot trends that are happening or they're going to happen. You know, when you're a writer, you listen to the community, what they're talking about. I'm like, people are talking about non-binary stuff, and we need to be able to, and feel that it's going to hit our community, and if we don't know what's going to happen, the fear is going to take over rather than being open.

M: So I wanted to work on that project and then it just didn't happen, thankfully, there are enough active young people out there who are talking about this.

M: But it's not on a wide scale. It's within their families and with their friends. If we could Primarily Midwest either.

MC: Yeah. I You're obviously an amazing writer and an amazing story teller. I appreciate that you're talking to me.

M: Oh, sure. Yeah, it's more free flowing that way, and people kind of anticipate the answers they're going to give when they know what the questions are. This is going to make me sound good, and, you know, yeah. I mean, we can do that, but that's not like authentic, like, just telling the story.

M: And when people start talking, they don't know things come up and, that's a good approach.

MC: So that would be wonderful if I can get your story.

MC: This was also super wonderful, and I so appreciate you telling me about the collective.

M: Yeah, no, no problem. There's some way that we could revive that I could find some who have a little more energy than I do, a little more free time. Just sit back and be the elder who guides, but let them do what they need to do with it because it should go to a new generation. Yeah. Yeah.

MC: It should and I would love to see the LGBTQ collection come out, there's such a need for it.

M: Yeah.

MC: There's a gap.

M: Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, there's enough local presses now because before there was hardly any local presses. There's enough local presses now that I think one of them would say, Yeah, we'll take that on a manuscript. Yeah. Would, you know. Yeah.

MC: Thank you so much.

M: Well, thank you for being patient and persistent

M: You know, I don't check my personal–I mean, my professional Facebook page very often, which I should.

M: So yeah, I'll send you to my personal Facebook page and friend me there and you can send me a message.

MC: Yeah, awesome. And I'll look up and try to find the farm worker–

M: –Anthology. I'll send that to you as well. Okay. Well, thank you.

MC: Thank you . Happy New Year. Happy holidays.

M: You too.

MC: Bye bye. All right. Be safe.

M: Bye bye.

Kansas City, KS