Paper 2: Wal-Mart Temptations

I try to shop local and buy organic. I recycle almost everything. I went into education partly because I believe in its power to, at least partially, equalize opportunities. Secretly though, I dream of shopping guilt-free at Wal-Mart. Like Nancy Griffith sings in her Woolworth's song, there's something desirable about filling our bags "with unnecessary plastic objects." I just can't bring myself to do it though. I guess I can blame my parents for this turmoil, right?

Looking at my parents now, you'd never guess they'd once been members of radical political groups and the communist party. My dad now goes to work in a business suit and tie and develops software for NOAH's weather satellites. Not too long ago, he even spent a few guilty years designing software for missile defense companies. My mom took herself from an unwed teenage mother on welfare, to a married mother of five children, who then, as a single parent, became a full-time college student. She now heads a department in the local school district, appropriately, devoting most of her time to mentoring teenage mothers.

But, that's not where my life started. When I was born, one of the names my four-year-old sister, Jessica, suggested for me (along with Santa Claus and Benjerina Delicia) was Chairman "Mouse."There was a copy of that classic poster of Mau, "Mouse"to my sister's ears, on our living room wall.

My parents, aunts, uncles, grandmother, and neighbors were all part of a radical group called Venceremos in the West Bay that was loosely tied with the Black Panthers in the East Bay. Most of their work though was quite peaceful. They set up literacy programs and a local college with financial aid to provide job training. My mom's job was to edit the newsletter. One of the articles fiercely targeted then governor, Ronald Reagan, and my mom, as the editor, ended up on the FBI's long list of people to monitor. The author had sketched in a gun pointing at the photo of Reagan, after all.

On the way to visit my dad's parents in Indiana, my parents took Jessica and infant me with them to the National Communist Party Convention in Chicago. All the out of towners were set up to sleep at the local YMCA. It was there, on the floor of the gym, surrounded by single men, trying to put my sister and me to sleep, that my parents realized they'd been duped; the communist party was not speaking for working families. That was the beginning of my parents' move away from the radical left.

A few years later, a renegade, break off group of Venceremos entangled themselves in what was later discovered to be a political trap. This group, which included some of my relatives, was part of the committee that supported political prisoners in the United States. Their assigned task was simply to support those prisoners through correspondence and perhaps seek funds for their legal fees. However, they covertly schemed to help release a prisoner from jail, partly on account of the prisoner's pleading. This plan, of course, blew up in their faces and ended tragically with a murdered prison guard and some of my relatives in jail.

My relatives' reckless political vigor echoes from a much distant generation. My three times great Grandfather Westlake drove a locomotive into Lake Michigan in a desperate move during a strike against the railroad. The Pinkertons then went after him and he lived a life on the run, visiting his wife on the sly, and approaching the house from the back.

Westlake and my relatives in Venceremos were fighting against something that was wrong - something that took advantage of working people's vulnerability. They all had some good intent in trying to fight back, but somehow those intents got tangled in something too powerful and dangerous. As a child, not understanding any of these events clearly, I had a sense of awe and fear for these histories.

My parents, by this point thoroughly disenchanted with their political lifestyle, moved from Redwood City to one of the most affluent towns in our country, Palo Alto. While they remained predictably liberal, our family's lifestyle certainly mainstreamed. My dad returned to school, eventually earning his PhD at Stanford (and a divorce from my mom, but that's another story). And my childhood, the part I truly remember myself, started.

Unlike my radical predecessors, I mostly wanted to be average. That was kind of tough, but, despite some blunders, I pulled it off. My childlike understanding of my family culture did get in my way more than a few times though. In preschool, I told the bully that my dad would get him with one of his guns. Of course, my father never would have done that and I got in big trouble. In elementary school, I refused to say the pledge, but that was partly because I'd never learned it correctly. Then, I got into a horrible argument with a girl who attacked me for not believing in God. I'm not sure either one of us really had any idea what we believed at that age. Then in middle school, I found out I was the only one of my friends who knew what all the C.I.A. was involved in. I made the mistake of telling my friend Brittany, whose dad was one of the new IBM big wigs and a staunch Reagan supporter, that the C.I.A. trained foreign governments in torture tactics. There was also that paper Mrs. Brusotti, my eighth grade social studies teacher, asked us to write. It was supposed to be about all the benefits of government, from the local to national level. Instead, I wrote about the lack of government support of "The People"and about the police brutality that occurred in many inner cities against black people. Needless to say, I didn't get a great grade on that one.

The weird thing is that although my heart is always with the underdog, I'm actually, despite my more radical stage in College, somewhat apathetic myself. I didn't even vote in the last election, let alone write letters to the editor or canvass the neighborhood--the least I should do to honor my family's political history. I was on vacation though when the ballots were due in the mail.

In middle school, I bemoaned all the qualities that made me unique among my pre-teen peers. I had relatives in jail. I was from one of the few large families in our neighborhood. We lived in the only subsidized family housing apartment complex in our city. I didn't get an allowance, and all my clothes were hand me downs or from Quality Mart, a definite sore point in a town like Palo Alto. All I wanted was to be like everyone else. I worked hard to be simply accepted, even sort of popular, without any extra notice. Then my friend Sylvia gave me what, I thought at the time, was my highest compliment. She said, totally unaware of my inner turmoil, that I had to be one of the most average people she'd ever met. She said it with a slight air of superiority and disappointment, but I was beaming.

Looking at me now, you'd never guess my family history. To my middle school self, this would be a victory. To my family ghosts, a tragedy. At this moment though, I'm not sure. I'd like to be a more assertive, letter-writing, actively involved person. But then I find myself poring over the latest sale ads from Wal-Mart. Ah!

Kelley Edwards

June 2002