As an investigative journalist at Workday Minnesota, you don’t have time to process. You interview people, go through documents and realize how bad it is, but it’s still months before you publish. Holding that pain is a difficult part of the work.
— Filiberto Nolasco Gomez
Table of Contents
Chicano Childhood in 1990s California
My parents were immigrants, naturalized by the time I was born in 1982. Growing up working class in Montebello, east of LA, we had the drug and gang presence, but what was most traumatic was the massive shift in school funding in California. One year we had music and art, and the next year it was all gone. We got moved to bungalows. They cut everything.
In the 1990s, California passed Prop 187, which would have denied government programs like education and social services to undocumented folks. It passed with 2/3 of voters supporting it, but was never implemented. Federal courts found it unconstitutional. I just heard an interview with Pete Wilson, Governor of California at that time, claiming there was nothing racist about the ballot initiative. As a kid I had no concept of citizenship. What I did understand was that Prop 187 was targeted at me and every other Mexican I grew up with in Montebello.
Colorism in Montebello California
Montebello is 75% Latinx. There, notions of race were not about phenotype, but about class and skin color. Those who were darker skinned, more recent immigrants, those who did not have an education, those who worked the lowest paying jobs were called “wetbacks.” There were people of color who had positions of authority and money, who were the police officers, bankers and local politicians. My bullies were not white people. They were wealthier Brown people, like State Representative Ron Calderon, convicted of corruption in 1994. We always knew he and his powerful family were shady, and oppressive, taking advantage of us. As a result, I grew up understanding whiteness not as a color, but as an attitude, a willingness to exploit people for your own interest.
First Generation College Student
I was the first in my family to go to college. Pitzer College in Claremont, is like Macalester: white, liberal, elite, with a level of entitlement that I just didn’t understand. We didn’t talk about white supremacy in my classes in 2000.
I started out as a philosophy major, but then the Iraq war happened. I couldn’t handle reading abstract texts when there was so much around me to be involved in. I started going to anti-war protests. I helped organize dining room workers who were exploited by the consortium of Claremont colleges. And then Chavez emerged in Venezuela.
Studying Media in Venezuela in the era of Hugo Chavez
Reading all these US-based Latin America publications focused on Chavez, I wanted to see the Bolivarian revolution for myself, so I signed up for a study abroad in Venezuela.
Pitzer had a great external studies program, with home stays and the ability to design your own research. I was in Venezuela during the 2003 coup. I saw how people believed, not just in Chavez’ Revolution, but in their own ability to assert authority over the state. I witnessed Bolivarian consciousness-raising circles. People would walk around with copies of the constitution, citing what part of it gave them the right to do what they were doing.
The right wing response to Chavez impacted me as well. The media was controlled by them, so all day you would see and hear messages directing you to go to anti-Chavez protests. Their propaganda was absurd, but typical for the Latin American right wing. They would say things like, “Chavez has a homosexual relationship with Fidel Castro and that’s why he is always going to Cuba.”
On the weekend, Chavez would dominate the state-owned TV station. He would speak for six hours, off the cuff, taking phone calls from people. In contrast to Bush who couldn’t finish a sentence without sounding like a jackass, Chavez was eloquent.
Class and Identification with the US
The inequality showed up graphically in political choices. My host family was anti -Chavez. They were middle class. The mom had a bunch of side businesses. Under Chavez she was asked to pay taxes for the first time. They would take me to anti-Chavez protests. I saw how the gatherings would look artificially big because they filled the space with cars.
My host family saw themselves as white. They had more US products in their house than I had growing up: Velveeta and Oreos. In LA, our staples were Mexican.
Mexican in Venezuela
My mom had always told me other Latin Americans hated Mexicans because they were jealous of them, but my Venezuelan host mom was all about the Virgin Mary. She was over the moon that I was a Mexican. When my mom would call to check up on me, the two mothers would talk for hours. I was the first student they had hosted who spoke Spanish. Most of the people in the program were Anglos, there to learn Spanish. I was verbally fluent, but not fluent in the written language, so I was able to participate in the language-based program and make it my own.
Witness to a Crime Against Humanity in Guatemala
When I got back, I designed my own degree in socio-political pedagogy. I had taken a course in Liberation Theology, and was reading about Paulo Freire. I wanted to study consciência, to know how people become radicalized. Venezuela was a good place to begin my study of that question.
I had strong academic support from my adviser Cindy Forester, and from a Catholic Priest on campus who was targeted by the right wing. He had a brain tumor. I supported him and he supported me. He died after a year.
My last year at Pitzer I was awarded a Watson fellowship. I went to Guatemala, South Africa and Northern Ireland. When I was in Guatemala, I was hanging out with different guerrilla and human rights organizations. I got to know some of the 1000 people encamped in a squatter community. I was visiting with them on August 30th 2004. On August 31st, government forces massacred members of the community.
Seeing photos of dead bodies splashed all over the media of people I knew, was formative for me. I was also a target of the state to some extent. Because I was with human rights observers and advocates, I was followed. The massacre of Nueva Linda became my first journalism project, a documentary.
After the peace accord of 1996, there had been an assumption that there would be peace in Guatemala between Indigenous peasants and the Government. That massacre showed that to be a lie. Since then there have been consistent attacks.
The massacre was the beginning of me looking at how vicious it is to be a darker person in this world. When there is even an attempt to get our perspective into the media, it gets so distorted and delusional. Cutting through that as a journalist, feels like the most important contribution I can make.
The Personal Implications of Neo-Liberal Policies
When I got back to Los Angeles, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. We didn’t have insurance then. It was before ACA. She was treated really badly and ended up dying two years later. The conditions of her death still keep me up at night; the mistreatment, the shoddy surgeries, the lack of urgency. Any opportunity for her to live was taken away systematically. It is hard to understand what was responsible for her death, but it is easy to understand that her condition was made worse because of how our system treats immigrant women.
I had started a Ph.D program at UC Santa Barbara with the idea that I would try to understand the historical underpinnings of the massacre in Guatemala. Mom died shortly after I began. My dad also died while I was still in grad school. While I had emotional support from my committee, I did not have the intellectual support I needed to finish the degree. I knew if I continued I would just add to my debt. If I ended up an adjunct, my debt would just accumulate. It didn’t seem tenable. I started applying for jobs.
Formerly Incarcerated
After my father died, I was drinking a lot. I hit a car that had three passengers in it. I was sentenced to one year in Los Angeles county jail;. Thankfully I only did two months. I was still in grad school at the time.
My experience in jail informs my perspective on prisons and on immigrant rights. LA County jail is segregated; Black folks, White folks, Latinos. I ended up with the immigrants because I didn’t have gang affiliation. I became aware of how many drug crimes were in the cells, how many times immigrants were incarcerated for bullshit charges.
It has gotten dramatically worse since then.
That experience shows up all the time for me, not just in navigating trauma but also — there are not too many working journalists out there who are formerly incarcerated, who can bring that experience to bare when investigating prisons and the immigration system. It is an honor to bring that perspective forward whenever I can.
Getting to Minneapolis
The Global Citizens Network had just taken over the Resource Center of the Americas in Minneapolis. I knew the legacy of the Resource Center. I had used their newsletter. I was excited for the opportunity. I was disillusioned when I arrived and found that people were most interested in Spanish classes. No one was coming to my speakers. No one knew me. I couldn’t create an audience. So I created a podcast instead and began exploring journalism again.
I jumped around after that. I found it easier to find jobs in Minneapolis than any other places I had been. People here know they should hire people of color. In California a Chicano dude with a degree is pretty redundant.
I started writing my blog, developing my narrative voice. I did a lifestyle podcast about Latinx issues, featuring LA musicians. Currently I am producing a podcast with my roommate and buddy Tor. It’s called No Me Digas and explores Latinx topics from a queer perspective. Two years ago I was hired by Labor Education Services to edit Workday Minnesota.
When I first moved here, people of color in Minneapolis noticed me freaking out in a room full of white folks. I was just not used to it. I had a different physical response to things that are normal for people of color growing up in Minnesota.
Workday Minnesota
Workday Minnesota was more like a newsletter for unions when I took it over. It wasn’t a consistent place for long-form journalism. I deliberately moved us into investigative journalism, while still honoring the legacy of an organization that works ardently for labor. I have broadened the focus to unorganized workers and community issues as well. I was able to build on prior research on prison labor. I have researched the labor organizing of erotic dancers, and conditions for immigrant workers in Worthington, as well the labor struggles of established unions.
I have also worked to make the site more approachable, appealing and easier to read. I’ve added video and photos. It amounts to a major shift in the work of the organization.
Seward Coop
I ran for Seward Coop Board before I started at Workday Minnesota. The workers wanted someone who would represent the interests of labor. When I began at Workday, I was deliberate in not informing my intern who was researching the labor struggle of Coop workers, about what I knew as a Board member. The intern did their own research. I did not influence or inform her work. The only thing I did was move paragraphs around, as a copy editor. I wanted to make sure there was no conflict of interest. When I made this clear to the Board they immediately decided that I did have a conflict of interest. Over the next four months they attempted to vote me off the board. It was important for me that I was voted off the Board in a public way. People needed to bare witness to it. I made myself a whistleblower. Afterward there was an attempt to demonize me.
What is the point of organizations that are supposed to be accountable to us, that instead tell us nothing? For me that is what was at the center of the Seward controversy. From my perspective there was no transparency on the Seward Board. I have written about it. But as a journalist you have to let things go. I have much bigger things to work on.
Investigative Journalism at WorkDay Minnesota
Investigative journalism is needed now, more than ever. More and more people are talking to me now, giving me tips. It is a great challenge.
The thing I bring to journalism is that I can relate to a lot of people. I know that notions of home and comfort are so complicated. It just depends on where you are at.
When I work on fast-food workers and theater workers, I have learned how normal sexual harassment is. I am not in a position to step into that. It is hard to hear that this is something people just accept. “This is the way it is.” That makes me uncomfortable, but as a dude I can’t say anything. Most people can’t take the chance to speak up. It is hard to see that, but I know people sometimes ask me why I don’t always do something about the way white people treat me. If I am going to spend my entire day responding to racism as it happens than my entire life is about whiteness. And I don’t want that. So I have been careful about what I push back against. I still want to enjoy my life.
The thing about being an investigative journalist is you find out how bad things are before anyone else does. People reading the news don’t have the full picture the way you do. And yet, as a journalist, you don’t have time to process. You interview CEOs, go through documents and realize how bad it is, but it is still three or four months before you publish. To have to hold that pain and not be able to process it with anyone is a really difficult part of the work. There are not too many investigative journalists working anymore. I am aware of most of them, at least here in Minnesota.
My Worthington piece was published by NACLA. That felt great. What is most gratifying is when social movements use my content as part of their campaigns. I wrote about a worker who experienced chemical poisoning while working for the infamous Elsey Partners, building apartments in SE Minneapolis for students. I became aware that people in Nebraska were using that article as part of their organizing campaign. The prison labor stuff I have done has resulted in conversations about how organizations like the U of M relate to inmate labor.
Because we are not a newsroom that is sensitive about readership and revenue, I can focus more on impact rather than eyes, which is a real privilege. In my blog I would get readership if I wrote about how awful a white woman was. It was tempting to keep writing those articles. But I realized I didn’t want my blog to be about white women doing horrible things. People loved it though. How gendered and messed up that is –that white men do not get that same negative attention.
Amazon Labor Organizing in Minnesota
I have been following developments of local Amazon workers for Workday Minnesota. The powerful thing about Amazon, is that is intensely organic. No one person is organizing it. It is folks who are really angry, frustrated and tied together. They decide to have an action and I find out about it. It is not like this years-long campaign. It is dynamic. It is powerful that way. It is fun to be on the sidelines of that one. Everything else we are covering in town is torturous. It has been going on for a long time; important, but slow-moving. Amazon is a lightning rod. Jeff Bezos keeps on finding new ways to be an asshole.
The Personal is Political
I am always wondering what the through-line of my life is; how this all makes sense. I have to write a lot of grant applications that require me to concisely review my life. Without the benefit of an intersectional lens, I would identify primarily as a person of color. I am able to embrace other identities. I am a writer, an editor, a formerly incarcerated person, a partner, an uncle, maybe a father at some point.
I have two siblings and a three-year-old adorable niece in California. I have had a stable romantic partner for a year now. That is new for me. We met at a wedding when we were both bridesmaids. We have never been apart since, though we have lived far away from each other. She was living in Geneva when we met. She just moved to California. The relationship has changed the way I interact with life.
One of things we need to talk about more, is the notion of trauma and pain. Childhood trauma specifically. Not having a romantic partner allowed me to ignore the way my trauma shows up and interacts with my relationships. This new status has pushed me, gently, to delve into therapy and see how and when my trauma shows up.
Trauma fucks with your memory and your perception of how the world works. That is a humbling recognition on my part, to realize that sometimes I just don’t see things well.
It has helped make me a sustainable journalist. I don’t control what I am experiencing. If we are not doing the work to understand what is happening at a neurological level , we are just not going to survive. Or we are going to do something that is not in the interest of ourselves or the people we care about.
I am an empathic person. It is hard for me when people are hurting. I want to challenge that. I have had a very windy path, becoming an adult. I realized that accountability is central to what I do. I get excited when people interact with my writing, and it inspires them to think about their own complex lives.
Body/Mind Connection
I’ve been doing crossfit for about ten years now, as an exercise modality, mixing weightlifting with high intensity movement. I go to this gym Solcana Crossfit, that is orientated toward being accessible to queer and trans-gendered folks, which makes it unique. It has been a space for me to explore how I identify with trans folks. It has led me to understand that we share early childhood harm. There is a strong identification there.
I need the physical release in order to keep my head straight, and to deal with sitting on my ass writing. I need to keep my body in tune and comfortable in order to do my best writing. That isn’t always easy. It takes work to get to the emotional place where you can string a lot of words together. I always respect that.
People ask about writing process. I think– shit– do I have one? I don’t think about it until someone asks me. But maybe this is it. I know I need the physical release even more than the writing release.
Next Steps: Journalism and Podcast Mentoring
My Dad came to Montebello from Mexico when he was in his early 20s, thinking he would spend a year there and go back. He ended up staying for 50 years, dying in California. Am I doing the same thing? I came to Minnesota with no intention to stay, but here I am, eight years later. I’ve bought a home. There are plenty of us LA diaspora folks in Minneapolis with similar stories.
It is exciting to be a journalist at a time when people’s sense of democracy is being undermined. It’s dark and morose, but on the other side, something really important is happening. If people want to investigate and write I am looking for them.
I am currently the primary writer at Workday Minnesota. Ideally I would like to see working people exploring and gathering knowledge, putting ideas together and seeing patterns. I love nurturing and supporting that curiosity, seeing what comes out of it. I am still an organizer. I want to organize people to see truth and knowledge. We need more stories about us.
In order to be attentive to the story, you have to be aware of the best platform to use to make it accessible to the people you want to reach. Is it a video? A podcast series? A six-month investigative project? What is the best way to share the experience? For many people, it is a traumatic experience that needs to get out, but they are not used to writing. Maybe producing an audio podcast is best for them. We want to elevate those who don’t end up being the celebrity organizers.
That is why I am launching this project, with a friend, to help people produce podcasts. I miss doing my own, but I don’t have time for it. I train people how to use the equipment. It’s fun.
It’s folks on the ground, doing all the work, learning all the lessons, that people should hear from. I spent many years feeling like I was failing. I now have a strong voice. I want to help other people who are similarly compelled, find theirs.