In the new Palabra podcast, journalists discuss work, personal stories

Editor’s note: The following essay was shown in the first episode Asi Fue, podcast created palabradigital news site of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists where journalists discuss the intersection of their personal history and their work.

Olga Rosales Salinas

I bought my first international flight using AOL dial-up and a prepaid debit card. I traveled from San Jose International Airport to Vancouver, Canada with a ten hour layover en route to London Heathrow Airport. My plan was to travel and eventually find a job. The trip was part impulsive behavior and part reaction to grief. Two years ago I lost my father in a car accident.

My mother supported this trip one hundred percent.

She was a few years younger than me when she immigrated to America from Mexico, she was only 17 years old. As we walked through the airport, she told me her story. She said she worked hard at canneries and felt grateful that she was able to stay in the country legally. She did this for her family, 11 siblings and six daughters.

It was the happiest I’ve seen her since I lost my father.

I listened to her story, ready to start my own. But even with her advice, I wasn’t prepared for the culture shock, the dollar exchange, or what an airport bar patron on the road from Canada to London told me, “Wherever you go, you’re there.”

To say that I was ill-prepared to land at such a large airport as Heathrow is an understatement. I had no idea how to use the transportation system, and I had no map of where I was going or a place to stay for the night. I only had the name of a friend who said he would meet me at a certain terminal at a certain time. I had two prepaid calling cards hidden between the pages of my passport and a thousand dollars in my pocket, in cash.

I was no longer in Watsonville, California. And surprisingly, because of the exchange of dollars, I needed a job almost immediately.

Over the next few weeks, I scoured the wanted ads at the back of my copy of Time Out magazine. After only a few weeks and a deposit for rent, I was left without money.

Luckily, I eventually found a job as a nanny looking after an eight-month-old boy and a three-year-old daughter in an upper-class English family. In my first week at work, I learned what a twelve-hour day was, how to cook for a family of four, and that servants didn’t eat with their families.

In my free time, I learned to drink like a man, or so they said. And, yes, how to use the tube.

Outline of episode 1 of the Palabra podcast

Olga when she first arrived in London, 1999

I also met people from all seven continents. On the subway, I saw women in hijabs walking between stations. One of my local watering holes was near Stamford Hill, where there were 30,000 Hasidic Jews. I was mesmerized and intrigued by the people of London and the immensity of a world I did not know.

I downplayed my hometown’s agricultural industry by producing berries, apple juice and lettuce. And when someone asked, I said that I was from San Francisco; it was recognizable, it was bigger, it was beautiful, and it was close enough not to feel like a lie.

Outline of episode 1 of the Palabra podcast

Maria Rosales and Abel Rosales, Olga’s parents, in their hometown of Tlaltenango, Zacatecas, Mexico, 1973.

Working in a family with wealth that I had never seen before was not easy. I was taught how to set the British table, and that the dishes themselves are an art. I learned how to make shepherd’s pie and use just the right amount of pesto. I discovered that cookies are not cookies; it is life and life with tea and this tea is a way of life.

I don’t know when I got a British accent, but I know exactly the moment when I realized that in fact it was not far from home. It was the middle of winter just above zero. There was a drizzle of recognizable snowflakes on the only winter coat I ever had. I had a baby in a stroller, and the baby followed next to me. We were at the local market shopping for a week’s worth of groceries when I recognized the bright yellow label with bold green letters in the grocery section. It read: Driscoll’s Strawberry, Watsonville, California.

No way, I thought to myself. I walked down the aisle to find other Watsonville-made products: Jolly Green Giant canned beans and Smuckers strawberry jam. But how? I imagined my father’s hands soiled with earth and sand. I pictured my mother’s hairnet and her time at the cannery. I thought about how far that strawberry had flown. I put a bunch of berries in a basket and ate them as we walked home.

They didn’t taste the way I remembered them. This strawberry tasted as alien as I felt. They tasted like exploitation, capitalism and the poverty line. In an instant, the world expanded and collapsed like an accordion on a quinceañera, jumping between reality and music. I missed him—my city, my father, even with the anger caused by his death. I missed everything.

The kid stopped me in the middle of an internal dialogue. Olga, could you share your strawberries? I haven’t looked at her since we started walking. But when I looked at her fluorescent skin, bright blond hair and blue eyes, I realized how privileged this child was, how extraordinary her life was from mine. I knelt in the silt, handed her the fruit and hugged her. I hoped she liked the berry, even if she never knew where it grew or whose hands planted it.

Olga Rosales Salinas editor and freelance writer who writes poetry, short stories and essays. As managing editor of the San Francisco Bay Area Moms, she hosts the Hella MomVersations podcast. Her signatures have appeared in Palabra, Voices of Monterey Bay (VOMB), Jumble & Flow, and more. Her debut collection of poetry and prose, La Llorona, was published by Birch Bench Press in 2021. In 2019, her philanthropy and activism began with a non-profit organization helping first generation students and immigrants. Rosales Sisters Scholarship. She has been the focus of the following podcasts and radio stations: THINK/NPR, KTVU, Los Sotelos Podcast, The Pajaronian, The Hive Poetry Collective @ksqd.org, Walk the Talk Podcast, “Making a Difference with Sheetal Ohri” on Bolly 92.3. FM and flip Easy @BFFdotFM Radio.

Content Source

California Press News – Latest News:
Los Angeles Local News || Bay Area Local News || California News || Lifestyle News || National news || Travel News || Health News

Related Articles

Back to top button