Imperial (227 page)

80. Professor Larry McCaffery—American literature teacher at San Diego State; literary critic; in his early sixties. Resident of Borrego Springs. Guide and companion in many of my Imperial adventures. Interviewed 1996- 2004.

81. Stella Mendoza—Board member of the Imperial Irrigation District. Born 1948. She was President during the crucial juncture at the end of 2002 when the water transfer was voted in (she voted against). Interviewed at her home in Brawley, 2003.

82. Eugenia McNaughton—EPA scientist. Interviewed by telephone in San Francisco, 2001.

83. Border Patrolman Dan Murray—Almost retirement age. Interviewed in Calexico and along the border while on patrol, 1999.

84. Evalía Pérez de Navarro—Hairdresser in late middle age. Interviewed while she cut my hair in San Luis Río Colorado, 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

85. George Michael Newman—Chief Executive Officer of Tactical Investigative Services, San Diego. Interviewed by telephone, 2003.

86. Clare Ng—My Chinese interpreter. Went down to Mexicali with her daughter in 2003 to interview Chinese for me about tunnels. Interviewed by me in Sacramento, 2003.

87. Rosalyn Ng—Clare’s daughter. Wrote Chinese-tunnels report for me in 2003.

88. Teresa Cruz Ochoa and her husband José de Jesús Galleta Lamas—Married thirty-four years; probably in their fifties but looked older. Had lived in Colonia Borges (three kilometers south of the line) for thirty years. Interviewed at their home in December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.

89. Yolanda Sánchez Ogás—Historian of Mexicali (where she was born circa 1940); anthropologist specializing in Cucapah Indians. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2003, 2004. Lupe Vásquez, José López and Terrie Petree variously interpreted.

90. Part-time cowgirl in Independence—How much of a cowgirl she actually was I cannot say, since she was selling sodas and beers in a little store in July 2005. But she claimed to ride horses on Owens Dry Lake, and she seemed honest. She declined to have her name used. Micheline Marcom was present.

91. Augustín Pérez Aguilar—Reporter for
La Frontera
(Tijuana). Interviewed in English at a restaurant in Tijuana Centro, July 2004. Terrie Petree was present.

92. Carlos Pérez—Policeman in Mexicali. Late thirties? Interviewed at the station in Mexicali, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

93. Rosa Pérez—Elderly woman from Sacramento, California. Interviewed December 2006 in the Child Heroes Park in Mexicali, the city of her husband’s upbringing. Terrie Petree interpreted.

94. Terrie Petree—A good Mormon girl who all the same somehow liked me. A fearless driver-interpreter, button-camera spy, companion, confidante who in the course of working for me sustained significant damage to her car from burglars and other agents of the Great Road. She turned thirty before the end of this project, but remains unbowed by old age. Many sections of this book benefit from her observations.

95. Noe Ponce—Late teens or early twenties. Interviewed in Duroville, Riverside County, 2004.

96. José Quintero—
Pollo
interviewed in Mexicali, 2002.

97. Señor R.—Private investigator based in Tijuana. Fortyish. Interviewed and hired by me in 2004 for my study of the
maquiladoras.
Perla, who covertly filmed several
maquiladoras
for me with my button camera, was in his employ. His name is on file at the California State Archives. Terrie Petree interpreted.

98. Socorro Ramírez—Proprietress of the roadside restaurant Yocojihua about ten kilometers south of Mexicali. Born in Jalisco; was brought to the Mexicali Valley as a child in 1952; picked cotton with her parents. Interviewed in her restaurant, 19 February 2004. Terrie Petree interpreted.

99. Zulema Rashid—Born in Calexico in 1945; third-generation through Lebanese father (grandfather arrived in Imperial Valley
circa
1910). Mother Mexican. Interviewed in Calexico, summer 2003.

100. Natalio Morales Rebolorio—Caretaker of Rancho Roa, about ten kilometers south of Mexicali. Interviewed on the ranch in 2004 and 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

101. Anna Silva Reina—Waitress in San Luis Río Colorado who wished to find her missing father. Born in San Luis, she had lived there and in Caborca, “to the north.” She had never been to Mexicali. She was twenty-five when I interviewed her in December 2006. Terrie Petree interpreted.

102. Rubén—Deported
pollo
working in a taco stand in Mexicali; interviewed in 1999.

103. Celestino Rivas—Sixty-two-year-old field worker, born in Michoacán; came as a bracero and stayed after he got his
mica
(border crossing card). Interviewed in Calexico, 2003. Lupe Vásquez was present and introduced me.

104. Juan Rodríguez—Older taxi driver who lived Monday through Friday in the city of Imperial, and weekends in Mexicali. Spoke very little English. Interviewed in his taxi, 2002.

105. Marjorie Gellhorn Sa’adah—Historian of downtown Los Angeles, and especially of its architecture. Interviewed in her area of specialty, September 2004. She gave a wonderful walking tour.

106. Luz María Salcido—Young housewife, with sixteen-year-old daughter; interviewed in her bare dirt yard in San Luis Río Colorado, where she had lived for years. The conversation took place in October 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

107. Don Carlos Cayetano Sanders-Collins—Rancher in middle age; interviewed with his family in his yard in a built-up
ejido
called Ciudad Morelos (southwest of Algodones, in the Mexicali Valley). Born in Ejido Indo. He lived in a house and his two brothers shared the family ranch, which lay some distance away. “Some of the family is here, some in the United States where they work.” The interview took place in October 2003, Terrie Petree interpreting.

108. Gilberto Sanders—Rancher in middle age; interviewed with his brother at his ranch in Ejido Morelos. Brother of Don Carlos Cayetano Sanders-Collins. The interview took place in October 2003, Terrie Petree interpreting.

109. Border Patrol Duty Officer Michael Singh—Interviewed at Calexico Station, 1999.

110. Alice Solario—Elderly Filipina married to a Mexican; munitions-factory worker; resident of Mecca since 1986; interviewed there in 2000.

111. Tim—Chinese teenager, probably illegal, interviewed in Mexicali, 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted.

112. Lic. Carlos E. Tinoco—Official of the Tribunal Unitario Agrario Distrito Dos. Interviewed in the tribunal offices in Mexicali, 2005. Terrie Petree interpreted.

113. Dr. John Tyler and his wife Margaret—Retired dentist (born 27 November 1911), who arrived in the Coachella Valley in 1936. She was born on a ranch in Coachella (9 November 1916). Interviewed in Palm Desert, April 2004.

114. David Urbanoski—Manager of the marina at Desert Shores, where I interviewed him in 2001. Long-term resident; older.

115. Lupe Vásquez—Field worker with papers, born in Mexicali; married, with a child. My friend. He must have been about fifty. Interviewed in Mexicali, 2001-2004.

116. Border Patrolman Brian Willett—Youngish. Interviewed at the Chula Vista border checkpoint while on patrol, 1999.

117. Xu—College-age Chinese waitress at the Dong Cheng restaurant in Mexicali; interviewed there and in a nearby tunnel, 2003. Terrie Petree interpreted. In 2004 Xu was no longer at the Dong Cheng.

118. Xu’s uncle—The “soft-spoken old shoe-store owner.” He was also Chinese, obviously. Xu gave me his name but he didn’t want me to use it. Interviewed in his store, November 2003. José López from Jalisco interpreted.

119. Mr. W.—The surveillance-countersurveillance expert who sold me the button camera which I used in my study of the
maquiladoras.
Interviewed by telephone in 2004. His name is on file at the California State Archives.

120. Alice Woodside—Rancher’s daughter; real estate broker; born
circa
1942 in the Imperial Valley near Signal Mountain. Daughter of Edith Karpen. Interviewed in Sacramento, 2004.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

This bibliography is divided into the following sections:

A Archival Sources.
Authors are especially proud of these, because inspecting them is inconvenient to most of the people who read our books. That is why these usually get listed first. Allow us our pathetic glory; we need to pretend that we have not wasted our lives.

B Ephemeral and Unpublished Sources.
Could probably have been put in the first category, but since they’re not all linked with a specific depository I saw fit to indulge an unaccustomed mania for tidiness. (My copies of these will be archived at Ohio State University.) These include dissertations.

C Periodical Sources.
It is very important to my image of myself that you know that I sometimes read the
New York Times
. Longish feature articles on specific topics are filed under those topics, an example being “The Chinese and Economic Development of Baja California,” which appears in category L.

D Websites.
A particularly hated category. Some URLs listed here are now obsolete.

E Reference Serials.
A lot of news about mostly nothing.

F Government Documents.
Originally classed together with the previous category since congressional records,
California Blue Books,
etc., are in effect an immense, open-ended serial; so in a way are the reports of most government agencies. But I didn’t want to annoy you. This category includes vital records such as death certificates and Ted Gostin’s privately compiled
Southern California Vital Records
but excludes the
Memoria administrativa
of Abelardo L. Rodriguez (found in category H).

G Area Descriptions, Guides and Atlases.
Everything from E. J. Wickson’s fossilized
Rural California
(1923) to near-ephemeral tourist books. Nongovernmental economic regional profiles also appear here. Some of this miscellany could easily have gone into the next category, or into the previous one, but what can I do? Archival and ephemeral maps appear under their own respective categories.

H Memoirs, Diaries, Correspondence, Histories, Pictorials.
For example, Pat Laflin’s unendingly peculiar
Salton Sea: California’s Overlooked Treasure
. Some Mexican and many American materials are found here (e.g., Hamilton’s writings); Chinese, Native American, Mexican and Los Angeleno materials each get their own category. Memoirs of migrant workers are in category K, as is a monograph on Dorothea Lange.

I Agriculture and Ecology.
Professor W. V. Cruess’s classic
Commercial Fruit and Vegetable Products
gets the prize. Agricultural atlases remain in category G, as does Gregor’s
Agricultural Typology of California
. Being a pictorial, McClelland and Last’s
California Orange Box Labels
rests in H. Boyer’s book on agrarian struggle in Michoacán is in N.

J Irrigation and Water Politics.
Water atlases remain in category G. Histories of the Colorado River and the Salton Sea remain in category H since I tend to cite them in descriptive and historical contexts.

K Migrant Workers, Labor Movements and the Border Economy.
Ruben Salazar, César Chávez, Okies, hobos, the Wobblies, etc. Since the Wobblies are here, so are revolutionaries such as Ricardo Flores Magón.

L Chinese Sources.
Includes memoirs, fiction, poetry and visual art. The Chinese-tunnel letters are in category B.

M Native American Sources.
Includes memoirs, fiction, poetry and visual art.

N Miscellaneous Mexican Sources.
Includes memoirs, fiction, poetry and visual art, such as works on and by José Clemente Orozco. Ulysses S. Grant appears here because all I cite from him is his description of Baja California.

O Los Angeles.
Excludes water politics (category I). Includes Catalina Island and other holdings of Greater Los Angeles, not to mention Diebenkorn’s Ocean Park paintings.

P Fiction and Poetry About Imperial.

Q Published Sources Metaphorically Relevant to Imperial.
For instance, works about Mark Rothko.

My arrangement is a compromise between making references easy to browse by category in this bibiography and making citations rational in the notes. For example, one generally cites by author or agency, but why shouldn’t the California Death Index be listed under precisely that name instead of under “State of California, Department of Public Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics and Data Processing”? So in the notes I have cited it the easy way. It appears in this bibliography in the “Government Documents” section, under its cumbersomely correct name, but prefixed by and alphabetized under the words “Death Index,” with “California Death Index,” so that someone who comes across it in the notes can find it.

Citations are filed under title when the author is anonymous. Art monographs are generally cited by the artist’s name, not the editor’s. If they are primarily biographies, then that is different. In short, I am going to do what I am going to do.