Raising the Blackbirds: A Story of an Immigrant Farmworker and His Community; Of Vision, Leadership Volume 1 - Moncrief, Edward
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The Mexican dicho "You raise the blackbirds, and they pluck out your eyes" captures succinctly Mexico's four-hundred-fifty-year history of treachery conspired and blood spilled both by its leaders and by those in rebellion. The saying likewise captures this story; Mexican history and culture--vibrant still in the blood and flesh of its people--propel the narrative to its soulful yet redemptive conclusion. Sixto Torres narrates his journey from childhood in Mexico to his emigration to the Rio Grande Valley. Eventually, in order to support his growing family, he joins the migrant stream to…mehr

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Produktbeschreibung
The Mexican dicho "You raise the blackbirds, and they pluck out your eyes" captures succinctly Mexico's four-hundred-fifty-year history of treachery conspired and blood spilled both by its leaders and by those in rebellion. The saying likewise captures this story; Mexican history and culture--vibrant still in the blood and flesh of its people--propel the narrative to its soulful yet redemptive conclusion. Sixto Torres narrates his journey from childhood in Mexico to his emigration to the Rio Grande Valley. Eventually, in order to support his growing family, he joins the migrant stream to California. He and his family arrive in Salinas in early 1970 just as César Chavez is challenging the power of the Valley's growers. A natural leader, Sixto joins the farmworkers' struggle for better wages and greater power over their living conditions, but he is soon organizing a new effort focused on the Valley's deplorable farm labor housing conditions. He seizes a rare opportunity to purchase and rehabilitate an abandoned labor camp. His fight to gain the knowledge and skills needed to overcome daunting cultural, political, and social obstacles--and to bring his fellow farmworkers along in the process--is successful; but Sixto is less able to overcome distrust, jealousy, and opposition among some in his own community.
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Autorenporträt
Born in Los Angeles in 1942, Edward Moncrief grew up in the rural town of Redlands, California. As a boy, he beat the summer heat by sleeping outside. He awoke in the mornings, hearing bracero laborers, singing their alabados among the nearby orange groves. He spent ten years studying to be a Franciscan priest, receiving a solid grounding in the liberal arts. During those years, he developed a love for literature and the English language. Moncrief decided to leave his studies for the priesthood at the age of twenty-three. He married Judi Carl in 1967. The following year, he entered graduate school where he earned a Master's degree in Social Work with an emphasis in Community Organizing and Development; after which, he moved first to the San Joaquin and then to the Salinas Valley. Moncrief spent his forty-one-year career directing non-profit housing organizations and developing new housing for farmworker families and other economically disadvantaged people. Raising the Blackbirds is based on his experiences developing farmworker housing. In 1980, he founded Community Housing Improvement Systems and Planning Association (CHISPA), a non-profit housing development corporation operating on California's Central Coast. Over the years, he has been a guest columnist and has written editorials and articles for the Salinas Californian, the Monterey County Herald, and Western City Magazine among other newspapers and journals. He was also a contributing writer to Jill Shook's Making Housing Happen, an anthology of stories about faith-based affordable housing models in the United States. Later in his writing career, Moncrief was a freelance reporter for the Salinas Californian.