Posted on Sun, Nov. 21, 2004
Silas Lyons
The Tribune
They are the children of Nuevo San Juan Paricutín, Mexico, and of Paso Robles, Calif., heirs to a rich and ancient culture -- and to poverty.
On this recent evening, they are seated around a small conference table in a county Health Department room that's almost too small to hold them. Here, for the next hour and a half, they will learn to tell an amazing story: their own.
To most of the community, they are invisible.
Now, through the lenses of 10 cameras, about 13 young people with a common heritage will document the spaces and faces most private to their families. They will reveal a culture that distrusts outsiders and is largely ignored by them anyway.
Descendants of the P'urépecha Indians, they are a people apart, even from other Mexican immigrants.
San Juanecos have established a thriving community in Paso Robles, with an estimated 50 families in the low-income Oak Park housing complex.
It is the largest concentration of people from Nuevo
San Juan in America. Rumor has it the community began when a handful of young men hopped a freight train in L.A. and happened to get off in Paso Robles.
They found work, and others followed.
The young people at the table are more established in America, but half of their loyalty remains in Mexico, on a high mesa in a town steeped in tradition and history. They range in age from early teens to early 30s, but most of them are in high school.
Their documentary project, funded by a $30,000 grant from the California Council for the Humanities, will follow many of them on an arduous three-day drive back to the stunning volcano their families came from for a month of holiday traditions that nobody wants to miss.
The project's director, Pedro Arroyo, invited me to track its progress as the students learn to tell their story and focus a camera properly. I'll be writing about it occasionally between now and April, when the work is exhibited.
On this night, the air hums with excitement. The return to San Juan is less than a month away -- for those who are making the trip.
Rocco Murillo isn't so sure: The 14-year-old with long bangs and a buzz cut can only go if he has a C average or better. He has one F, he confides to me, but he's working on it.
There are many reasons it's so important to go, not the least of which is a break from American life.
San Juan is like a grandmother with arms outstretched.
"Libre, libertad" is what the kids say most often when you ask them about the place. Freedom.
It's a huge ongoing party, a family reunion, a break from being viewed as foreigners.
The distinctive round eyes of the P'urépecha are everywhere. The landscape is stunning.
There's a viejo, or old, San Juan as well. It's a short distance from the new one, in the shadow of lush mountains in the state of Michoacan. Because of a 1943 volcanic eruption, the old city is no more, except that the steeple of the old cathedral juts out of the lava flow like an arm from the ocean.
Debates over immigration aside, there is no arguing that this place most of us have never heard of is an important source of culture and influence in Paso Robles' growing immigrant community.
The children of Nuevo San Juan have set out to illuminate that place, and themselves.
In this small room, there's growing reason to believe they might succeed.
Some of them have difficulty concentrating, but they are learning to compensate. Betty Banderas, 15, scribbles the next week's assignment in blue ballpoint on her arm so she can remember what photos to shoot.
José Murillo, Rocco's quiet brother, surprises everyone by volunteering to read a description of himself to the group. They've been asked to write one as an exercise.
"Nice person," José reads, his voice low and eyes pointed down. "Kind of shy. Most of the time being happy."
This is progress, Pedro tells me. The group is opening up, slowly but surely.
There's an amazing story at the center of their lives.
They will tell it, Con Nuestros Propios Ojos, as the title of this project says.
With Our Own Eyes.
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