Más Bakersfield

Breaking the barrier

Growing up as a migrant farmworker child had its share of obstacles for Alice Carrillo, now a 60-year-old author and executive director of Luv N Care Vocational School for Childcare in Delano.

Yet it is those experiences that compelled the wife and mother to write a book that she says can help women like her get ahead in life and become self-sufficient through education or vocational training.

“I’ve always been interested in helping Latina women, especially the ones that experienced migratory life like I did,” Carrillo explains.

In her recently released book, “One Latina Breaking the Language Barrier,” Carrillo shares her own migrant lifestyle experiences through stories and poetry.

“A book like this relates to the struggles we had as a child growing up in a migratory life,” said Armida Oros, Carrillo’s twin sister. “When people read the poems Alice put in her book, they can go back, and it brings back emotional memories. It’s inspiring.”

Alice Carrillo interviews many other Latinas who come from similar backgrounds.
“Almost all of them returned to their roots and continued to help their people, just the way I did,” Carrillo said.

The book will hit home for many Latinas living in the Central Valley.

“Having literature written from a variety of perspectives is important because seeing oneself in literature empowers people,” says Nina Marie Martinez, Chicana author of “Caramba, A Tale Told In The Turn  of the Cards.”

Carrillo remembers her childhood in Arizona, but as a migrant farmworker child, she and her family moved through California’s agricultural lands working different crops. The seasonal work landed her family in some Central Valley agricultural towns, including Earlimart.

She clearly remembers having no place to live but a simple tent as the family’s home while they continued on their journey.

Worries about having enough money to feed the family were a constant. But her parents always seemed to manage.

“My father, Ramon Oros, uprooted the family in 1955 and migrated to California, the land of opportunity,” she laughs.

As soon as they were old enough, she and her siblings joined their parents out in the fields.

There, she experienced firsthand the discrimination and harassment her parents endured for the sake of providing for their family.

Not knowing the English language, they were limited to what jobs they could do to support their family.

“If my people would be given the chance to receive vocational training in their primary language, there would be less poverty,” she said.

 Josie Gallardo, a longtime friend of Carrillo, recalls how tough it was for Spanish-speaking children who didn’t have access to bilingual tutoring.

“We had to struggle more with our studies,” Gallardo remembers.

Once they were old enough to work out in the fields, school took second place.
Providing for the family was first.

Carrillo’s voice softens as she recounts how her older siblings worked hard so she and her twin sister, Armida Oros, wouldn’t have to. Her siblings were older brothers Frank, Ramon, and William, now deceased; her 69-year-old sister, Emilia, who now works for North Kern State Prison in the education department; and her 65-year-old brother, Joe Oros, who is self employed.

“They worked so that my sister and I could attend school and didn’t have to make fieldwork our career,” she said.

They wanted their younger sisters to attend college and leave the harsh life, living paycheck to paycheck, working twice as hard to just get by.

She truly feels if it weren’t for them she might not be where she is today.

“Today, we are successful businesswomen, thanks to my brothers and sister who helped us get through high school, which helped us get started going to college.”

Once in college, things were definitely not easy.

There were many moments in which Carrillo felt overwhelmed and nearly gave up.
 
But all the memories of what her family went through to get her there is what helped her keep going. Her husband, Porfirio H. Carrillo, also played a key role in her success.

Carrillo smile broadens as she says, “If it weren’t for his support, I would have never earned my master’s in human development and child development.”

He helped take the pressure off her many times by helping take care of kids while she was going to college.

He knew how important it was for her to get her degree and help others like her get ahead and become self-sufficient like she was.

“She is 100 percent committed to that,” he said. “I support that all I can.”

Throughout her life she has trained hundreds of women who have been hurt and on disability while working in the agricultural fields to restart new careers in home-based child care with preschool programs.

Much like her father, the language barrier makes it even tougher for these women to get ahead.

Nevertheless, they are relentless about continuing on and providing a better life for their families.