American Journey; 103

Dr. Myers is not a visitor. He's one of us. And it's good to be home. Back to the home church where I was licensed to preach the gospel, where the Lord took me... as a very young student at the University of Wisconsin... His career here was up and down some of his performance was truly remarkable. Very good he's a very bright person. And other times it was just abysmal. I told Ron on, on, on a number of occasions-uh- at least several occasions that really he ought to choose what he wanted to do in life whether it was medicine or whether it was of his role as a minister or as a musician. They all kind of flow out of the same thing. A'right where'd you hurt

yourself at son. I see medicine as a means of ministry instead of uh, uh maybe speaking the word of God, or teaching the Word of God, and constantly, I'm actually touching people and helping to uh, heal their bodies through medicine. Tchula is a Mississippi Delta town. The Delta it is a unique area of the country because of the fact that it's a just about all flat. Fact'a one of the surprising things when I came to the Delta I could jus' for miles of flat land. But it's a very poor area and Tchula has about a population of 2,200. And in fact they lost their only industry they had which was a sawmill in fact.

Now they're about to have about 80 percent unemployment rate. So we have a poor agricultural based town in need of a lot of assistance. Let's face it most people when they finish their residency they want to come out and make some bucks. And they're not interested in poor medicine. Many of them not interested in seeing Medicaid patients 90 percent of my patients are on Medicaid, Medicare. Always felt close to Tchula. The former mayor of Tchula, Eddie [unclear] and I met him while I was in Madison as a medical student and the first thing I did when I pulled into Mississippi with all my bags packed in my car I went by Tchula and met Eddie Carfan [?] and I said look I'm going to be in the area and I hope I can get in here to Tchula to see some patients. [Alfio Rausa] The problem has been that it's not an attractive area where you want

to send your kids to school raise your family and you know if you're a farmer or a hunter you may enjoy the Tchula area but you've got to go elsewhere for your recreation and for your education. I mean there's not a great deal of excitement that goes on in Tchula. They told me that Tchula was too poor for a doctor. And that I would be in financial ruin if I came here. In the history of Tchula we've had eight or ten physicians over a 10 or 15 year period that had gone and set up practice there through National Health Service Corps. But they were you know they did their obligation and then they marched on to other areas similar. [unclear] to me that if there was a doctor in a resident coming to a place like Tchula they would give me some grant assistance to get in here. But I found out that in many ways our government writes the poor off. And that even made more determined to get in here and provide the services that were needed.

I heard from the lady I'm seeing that you know she came here and she told me you know understanding about people with low incomes. I felt like in a city they have like a program to help people when they in a bind or help the mother and child when they leave you know husband. Here, you know there's nothing. There's no kind of resource anybody can turn to. I'm back. She had a bad infection I just needed some antibiotics. The follow up from a doctor. The problem was she didn't have any insurance, any money and these doctors will not give you the time of day if, particularly, even a person without even a Medicaid card. OK you can go. Wait don't worry about the $30 dollars, okay? [unclear] Are you worried about maybe losing your child? Yeah

[unclear] You're real brave you know that? When I got my blood drawn I screamed and kicked and asked for my momma and everything. But I want you home resting in bed. No lifting. I want you relaxing. If you have a gush of blood or some severe cramps something like that you call me. I'm gonna give you my card. You call me and ah just [unclear] again is having some cramping and I'm really concerned that we might be looking at a situation that might require some emergency surgery. Listen I'm gonna have turn you up to Greenwood. See Dr. Evans okay. Cuz I think that I want him to take a look at you because I'm concerned about the pain you having and the bleeding. How ya doin? Yeh, looking for Dr. Evans. Hello there how you doing? I'm looking for a Doctor Evans. This is Dr. Myers. OK what is his home number. Let me

leave my number. If you see him tell him to call me over here in Tchula at... So I'm trying to find him now. I try calling the hospital. I called him at home. He wasn't around but I'm sure with the next 10 15 minutes he's going to call back. I know from the results of the test several of the situation was could be an ectopic pregnancy and that's always always a dangerous situation. A person can bleed to death very quickly. So I wanted to get her to an obstetrician gynecologist as quickly as possible. And of course the local one, the one that was the closest wouldn't respond and so i ended up having to a one that was almost three times distance away but she did thank the Lord that she's she's fine. I've been a musician all my life. In fact I played all through medical school. And I think there's an example of

famous musican. A nobel peace prize winner I believe [unclear name] and he was a musician. One of the problems was, you know, that he would take off. He's a musician, as you know. If you don't know, he's an accomplished pianist, and he plays a good jazz piano. He had strange hours -- that he would make rounds at the hospital sometimes, you know, near midnight by the time he got around to doing what he had to do. You could put yourself out so much that you're so tired that you're not going to be at your best. That's a- that's a concern. I have to do a better job of taking care of myself.

And, um, which means that if I'm going to be around for the long haul, a lot of these problems that people have are just going to have to be- they're just going to have to- I can't do it all. And that's sad. This is where I, um, originally came to Milwaukee. This neighborhood -- I would play in around here. You know one of the saddest things about coming home is many of my friends I grew up with, you know, they're dead. Three weeks ago, one of my closest friends I grew up with was just shot down on Atkins.

But it's sad. It's sad to see the killing. And I think really -- you know, I think in many ways as a black church, we've failed our- we're failing our community in terms of our lack of really having an impact on this whole problem. You know, because the black male's ending up an endangered species. We need your touch. As a look at the community. The problems facing us Lord we need to touch. Your word says says have faith has the size of a mustard seed. You can say to a mountain it need move and it will move We take our faith.

In a mustard seed. Lord I look to You to move our mountain of need. Ask anybody how many white Anglo-Saxon American who lives in a suburb knows what a migrant worker does. You know, one of the reasons is that's why our food is so cheap. I mean, you go to any food store, and the prices of vegetables, you know, we think, "Oh my gosh, you know, it's so cheap." And, you know, that the reason --

because these people are working and working and working and not getting paid for all of their hours. That's the way America keeps the food cheap. We decided we wanted a different life for our children. We didn't want them to migrate. And I think that we did real good, because we ended up with an attorney in the family. My parents and my relatives, the Cerveras -- a lot of people supported me, so I was able to get pretty far. However, a lot of the migrants are not as fortunate as I am. It's really kind of difficult for them, because it's so hard to break out of the migrant stream. [MUSIC] Basically, this is a picture of when I was seven months

old. I think I was first learning to walk or something. And you can see this is- this is Kleinman. And I think it's called Aunt Nellies' now. And this is the house where we used to live. This one I was, I think, a year old. And this is the next year at Kleinman. So that's Kleiman again. I guess that was my second truck up to the camps, and I've grown. I was always a little bit behind in school. All the kindergarteners had to -We're in a big circle in the middle, and in order to get out of the circle you had to count to 13. And I was a very last child in the circle, and I would start. Teacher would say, "Ok, Jean, your turn." Ok, one, two, three, quatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, you know, and I'd get all the way up to 13, and she'd say, "No, that's wrong. You stay in that circle until you can count." And so, you know, you just- you, you have this ingrained that you're somehow, like, inferior. But

you have to overcome that and eventually just compete. Basically, I keep these pictures here because it's something from my past, and it reminds me of where I came from and where I need to go and not to forget the people who are who are still at these camps and to remember always that the conditions and the exploitations are still there and are still alive. These are the camps. This is where I used to live. Hopefully I'll be going to see is one of my relatives who's still coming up. They've been coming up for more than 25 years. So I still have family at this camp. My grandmother came up until last year, except now she's pushing 60-something years old, so it's about time for her to get out of the migrant stream and just take care of herself. This is where I used to live -- this one right here.

Hi my name is Jenny Cervera, and I'm an attorney for Legal Action in Madison, and I was just coming to see how everything was going and if you had any problem or questions. I mean you're- Questions like what? Pertaining to the camp? Yeah. My opinion is this camp is outdated. I used to come here when my parents were newly married and I was about three years old and I was just my first time back for, like, 20 years, and -- actually more than 25 years, yeah. And it's the same, todo da igual. I used to live in that house over there, es ahi. And at that time, that was just one house. Now what they did was they divided it. Yeah, what they try to do is they pack them in now. We don't have a sink inside, because we don't have drainage, we don't have faucets. None of these buildings that are here do. So this is where I wash my dishes. This is where I drain them, and this is my- where I rinse them and where I drain them. And the floor? Well, we don't have any carpets or we don't have linoleum,

you know. If we want to, we can get it ourselves, you know. But I think these are the newest ones. That's a tractor, that's a field, that's a cornfield, I think, or something right here. We're surrounded by fields, and it's the company's, and they work there, and they- the tractor goes, you know, all day long. Oh this is my uncle- my uncle's house. Hey, I'm at the wrong door! How are you? [Tractor Noises] My debts are going up in 1950 and they were pretty much the same. With the exception that later on they build them there brown ones over there. Of course the outhouses they built later on, over the years Nothing's changed. It's the very same, its a section of a few windows and

a paint here and there. But, you know, the casitas are falling down. And I think that if- Well, they've been like this for 40 years. Yeah, yeah. I mean the outhouses -- I think, "My goodness, it's 1990. Let's try to get some water inside the house, some running water." I suppose there are other places that are worse. The migrant workers are very vulnerable. They're out in the sticks somewhere in Wisconsin, where there's really no legal advocates that are looking after their interests. You know, I would never want to work in an L.A. Law-type firm. I'm not- Their focus is all off. My focus is to help the people. And that's what I was educated for, is to help the people and to be their representative and counsel -- not to grab the gold ring. Oh, yes. Hello! Hi!

[Spanish chatter] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] [speaking spanish] Ok. Well, see, if you helped haul- if you helped haul you have a right to receive wages for that, ok? So if they only paid one person, that's not right. The laws are that everybody is supposed to get paid for hauling. Ok, so I'm going to give you a calendar, okay? But you have to make sure you keep real good records, okay? Because you shouldn't rely on the employers' records for hours. All right? So you keep all of your records of the hours you spent plowing, weighing, picking, buying, all right? So if the employer says, "No, you shouldn't keep those hours. We're not going to pay you for those hours." I don't care, because you're entitled to get

paid. OK. Well nice meeting all you guys. [child laughter] [Music and child laughter] [Music] These are the showers, and they're pretty scary. If you want, you can follow me. I'm going to the area where they do their laundry. And last year they were having problems, because every time you tried to use the laundry, the machine, you'd get electrical shocks. And I can't tell you if it has been repaired or not, but it's still pretty bad. There's electrical wiring all around all on the floor, and it's all wet. So whenever somebody

wanted to do any laundry, they would get a real severe electrical shock. Basically, before this building was used to house livestock, and now it's housing migrant workers. And this is one of the poorest housing conditions that I have seen in the Wautoma Area. [Music] [Dog Bark]

I don't want to pick a fight with Legal Action. I just, uh- and this- this year so far is fine. I just don't like these surprises they pull on you every once in a while of things that's going on you don't even know about. I got 36 cents for the bucket. 36 cents. I got 30, 36 to 40 cents a bucket. They get 50 percent of the crop. If they don't make it on 50 percent of the crop, they are guaranteed the minimum wage. I mean, we have a- we take a lot of money, but we also spend a tremendous- we're spending almost over 21 percent on workman's comp, unemployment, Social Security. And I mean, I know that people need the money, that's for sure. But it's still- I have to look at it as, you know, you're paying 6, 7 percent sometimes for unemployment on your whole total payroll. That's a whole lot of money. We think that if the people would come to us instead of running to Legal Action, that we'll solve all the problems that need to be

solved. They don't need to go to Legal Action every time they got a little problem. The sad thing is I'm going to be moving to San Francisco. However, I've just accepted a position with the Environmental Protection Agency, and I'm going to be carrying a big stick and trying to make sure that big corporations don't exploit the environment. I go back, year after year, and it's the same thing. The same thing, year after year. And it's really sad. If the only way that they can succeed, that these growers can succeed is by the exploitation of workers, then that's not- thats not right. I mean, you don't see that at McDonald's, why should you see that in the fields? The secretary that works here

gave it to me, and I'm probably going to put it up in my new office. [Laughter] I'm burnt. But I think that it's something that every attorney who does this type of job has to deal with -- just burning out. Doesn't mean that there's not going to be another client on your doorstep tomorrow. Okay, you're working out in the fields with your mom? Okay, you have the right to get paid some money for that, ok? They shouldn't be los olvidados, the forgotten ones, because they're there. And you have to remember that when you buy your food, because when you pick up a vegetable, you pick up a fruit, you have to remember that it was a migrant worker who got it there.