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Last revised: August, 1995

Greetings to China

by Mary Moore

IT HAS BEEN MY PLEASURE to work with many strong, wise and wonderful women over the years in our mutual efforts to seek justice and peace. Since I am planning to attend the worldwide N.G.O. (Non-Governmental Organizations) Conference this year in Beijing, China I thought I would take along some greetings from our community. Sonoma County is a once-rural area, two counties north of San Francisco, California. We are blessed with much physical beauty-from the tall ancient redwood trees to a beautiful rugged coastline to prize winning vineyards to rich valleys being preserved for agriculture. We are also blessed with a strong and progressive activist community that works on all the issues of social justice and environmental preservation. That includes a very large and diverse womens' movement. We also have the dubious distinction of being the home for the infamous Bohemian Grove retreat, probably the most exclusive mens' club on earth. For 116 years, this group of multi-national C.E.O's, ex- and current U.S. Presidents, major world bankers, captains of the defense and nuclear industry have used our backyard for their annual summer get together. (Please make an effort to see the informative slideshow which will be shown at the N.G.O. Conference in Beijing. See schedule) To give the conference women a look at our activist community, I asked several local women to introduce themselves, explain how they "chew away at the beast" and anything else they might want to say to their sisters around the world. Here is some of what I got and what I will take with me to China from Sonoma County women. Mary Moore

LORAYNE MARTINEZ, Guerneville  I moved to Sonoma County from Los Angeles in 1992 and did I experience culture shock!! It is not as diverse as I'd like it to be and not nearly enough respect for the diversity that is here. But as is said, "it's a microcosm of the whole". As long as the planet has the words racism, sexism, homophobia and any other negative "ism" in its consciousness, I'm dedicated to learning and communicating. Two of the most exciting ways of doing this for me has been as a volunteer for the Santa Rosa "Annual Pow-Wow" and with a radio program which I produce with four other women called Womens' Emerging Voices. We speak our minds with anger, sadness, strength, vulnerability, laughter and prayer. We do our best to learn and communicate. We call ourselves the "Hardcore Fem Lizards", so if you're ever in our area tune in on Monday nights to KBBF 89.l FM at 7:05 pm.

MEI NIKANO, Sebastopol  A friend from New Mexico sent me an Indian dream catcher the other day. Good dreams find the center hole in the hanging, she says, then slip through and slide down the feathers to the one who dreams. Bad dreams get tangled in the webbing and perish with the first light of day. I've had my share of dreams, but I understand what Langston Hughes meant about 'dreams deferred'. Growing up Japanese-American and female, I understood very early, very clearly, that my boundaries were limited. My family couldn't live where we chose, we kids couldn't play where we wanted, we couldn't eat in certain places. And, in our family, the dreams of us four girls came after the four boys could spin theirs out.

Limited boundaries spawn limited dreams. Or wild and wacky ones. So I started out wanting desperately to be Shirley Temple, all dimples and curls, tap-dancing my way through life on the Good Ship Lollypop. But by the time I got to high school (late 30's), I got real. Japanese American women were not being hired for jobs that required showing ourselves over the counter, so to speak--not as receptionists, salespeople, not even as teachers. Surprisingly enough, you could find work in the medical field--be a nurse or a lab technician, something like that.

My mother wanted me to be a nurse. I didn't like their shoes, so I prepared to be a typist clerk. But before I could do that, Fate decreed World War II. And, along with all Japanese Americans on the West Coast, I was forced into a concentration camp. To make a long story short, I married a man there, who, when I had just birthed a baby boy, was drafted into the U.S. Military Intelligence Service. You heard that right. The U.S. government put us into camp as a threat to national security (they called it "military necessity") then DRAFTED MY HUSBAND OUT OF CAMP to serve in an intelligence unit in Japan to preserve our national security.

Well, I never became a clerk typist. I became radicalized instead. And, I guess those good dreams started finding their way through the hole and sliding down the feather and filling me up. Eventually I got through college with a Master's degree in English, taught in community colleges for awhile before withdrawing to write. My first non-fiction book is in its fourth printing.

Dreams fulfilled...but not finished. They're larger now. Now I wish (and work) for a world in which every boy and girl might have far reaching dreams and an even chance at making them real, a world where bigotry and hate get caught in the web of bad dreams and perish with the first light of day.

CHARLA GREENE, Oakland (formerly of Sonoma county)  Who am I? I am Life, and the opposite Death. I honor Death as naturally part of Life, but I fight the misuse of Death as it is manipulated by the U.S. Government to threaten and eliminate minorities and the poor through the use of the death penalty. I work for the abolition of the death penalty, and I also work for the education about the issues, not only showing the death penalty in it's true light as being a convenient tool of politicians, but also to rehumanize the victims of it: the prisoners, and their families. My ultimate goal is to raise the awareness that we are all human beings, and no one is less than that, and no one should be put into a situation of torture and/or execution by the government.

BETH GRIMES, Petaluma I am an American older woman, resident of Sonoma County, California. For the past five or six years, my main purpose has been to achieve and maintain reproductive rights for all women. I am dedicated to the proposition that the decision about whether and when to have a child should always be made by the woman who will be responsible for bearing and rearing that child. I work toward a society in which no woman will ever be forced to bear a child she does not want and no woman will ever be prevented from bearing a child she does want.

MARIA CUEVAS, Windsor  I am fortunate to work with 11 wonderful, nurturing women at the NATIONAL WOMENS' HISTORY PROJECT, a grass-roots organization that we started here in Sonoma County 15 years ago in order to promote the multi-cultural study of womens' history and womens' accomplishment. This year we are busily promoting the celebration of the 75th anniversary of womens' right to vote in the U.S. Through campaigns like this we work to change attitudes and raise consciousness in our schools and communities.

Thank you, my courageous sisters, the 35,000 of you who have made the commitment to come together on this global scale and attempt to bridge the gaps and breakdown the barriers of race, class, language, cultural and sexual preference among us. I am optimistic that through your efforts we can begin to create a world without borders where our diversity becomes our strength and where the dignity of human life is foremost. We are with you in spirit.

LILITH ROGERS, Santa Rosa   I've been a politically active person since I was a teenager in Texas in the late 60's. Now, in my late 40's, my chief concerns for the past few years have been working with other local women to end violence against women and children in our own home county (Sonoma) joining with other lesbians and gays to support our rights and joining with other activists from across the country to end the U.S. blockade of Cuba. I've taken five trips to Cuba with the Freedom to Travel Campaign and Pastors for Peace in the last three years and two of the highpoints of my life were receiving an embrazero from President Fidel Castro and hearing Rigoberta Menchu speak at the International Solidarity Conference in Havana last fall. I'm also a mother of three wonderful kids, a poet, publisher and landscape gardener.

I send love and respect to all my hardworking sisters from around the world!!

ENID PICKETT, Santa Rosa   Sisters--My words echo from those voices heard from the past...from sisters old and young. Their voices cry, sing, scream and whisper with the same sighs that reflect their inner strength. My words are their words, my dreams inherited.

We no longer ask, we demand!

We no longer stand alone, we stand as one!

The message is clear. Freedom from fear. Freedom to express and to exist. Freedom to create. Freedom to live.

ANITA POREE, Kenwood  Contributing to the SONOMA COUNTY FREE PRESS has been, and is, a blessing for me, in that it provides me with the opportunity to share those priceless gems I encounter in my personal, work and creative lives. My ethnicity is Creole (African, Spanish, French) and Choctaw and my background is that of an artist-activist; music, poetry and politics being my mediums of expression. My current bread 'n butter is that of a facilitator/consultant specializing in organizational communication issues for viable change.

The main vehicles of training I employ are Diversity Awareness and Dynamics, strengthening alliance building skills, Conflict Understanding, Outdoor Adventure and Initiative Based Team Building and Organizational Development. All such are experiential and process centered techniques.

I've been gifted with participating in and being witness to, this profound time of organizational change in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors. And I feel privileged to pass my experiences on to my readers. Especially those who find themselves growing their own other voices of intervention, protest and healing regarding issues of societal change in the area of unlearning behaviors of oppression (whether conscious or in unaware collusion) in intricate systems of elitism.

CAROL MILLER, Cazadero   All of the work I am able to do toward a peaceful future, equality of rights and environmental justice grows out of my family life, and in many ways out of the garden which nourishes us. Michael and I and our six children focus most of our attention on the health and well-being of the littlest ones, on their education and their coming of age in this difficult socio-political world. Our very remote home allows us enough separation from the demands of society that we are able to homeschool our children.

Cazadero Academy, the small community high school where I teach part time grew out of the need for our children and others like ours to share the teen education experience with other students and adults committed to creating a college prep curriculum that was not insulting nor dehumanizing.

Outside our home and school, our family has worked with various anti-nuclear campaigns over the years. Our greatest effort over the past 15 years has been toward the legalization of marijuana, as an important civil rights issue, but also as an environmental and economic issue. My research and writing and contact with state and national organizers led me to develop a cottage industry manufacturing hemp seed oil natural cosmetics, which my family helps me produce and distribute worldwide. I am currently working with the statewide initiative to legalize medical use of Marijuana. The "Drug War" is a war against youth and especially people of color, whether its the dangers on the street or the danger of three strikes as it can apply to cultivation or acquisition of the herb. It is an unacceptable situation.

PATRICIA ROBLES MITTEN, Santa Rosa   Queridas Hermanas! You all make me proud-all 35,000 of you! Fight Back! Stand your Ground! Move Ahead! Adelante Mujeres!

TONI NOVAK, Healdsburg   Greetings to the Women of the World now gathering in Beijing. I am a member of our local Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women. My special interest is in violence against women and children. I have a daughter nine years old. Worldwide, our children are suffering from the war making and social indifference of leaders. We the women must work for peace and for the economic and social freedom to control our own bodies and our own labor, both in the home and in the larger world. Our daughters and sons will be the beneficiaries of our struggle for freedom. I believe our solidarity as women can change the world for the better.

MARY MOORE, Camp Meeker   I have been a worker for social justice for 33 years, the last 21 in Sonoma County. As Lorayne Martinez said, it was a real culture shock moving up here from Los Angeles over two decades ago. With all the natural beauty and "raised consciousness" of this area there is still much work to do in the arena of white supremacy mostly on the unconscious level. Although I took a slight detour in the late '70's through the anti nuclear movement, most of my life's work has been toward ending sexism, racism and classism and getting people to understand how connected they are and how overcoming all three are necessary on the path to peace and justice. It is a struggle!!

I have also been very active in calling attention to the "Good Old Boys" network at the Bohemian Grove and hope those of you reading this will make an effort to see our slideshow at the N.G.O. Conference in Beijing. For the past ten years I have put out a newspaper called the Sonoma County Free Press  and am part of a collective of five women who do a weekly radio show on our local bilingual station KBBF I am thrilled to be going to China and if I can't meet all 35,000 of you in person I send my love through this forum.

CAROLE ELLIS, SANTA ROSA   In 1978 I was "riffed" (reduced in force) from my tenured teaching position in San Rafael, landed another job at RVJH in Santa Rosa, and moved to Sonoma county. These changes were, at once, traumatic, fortuitous, and fearsome. The word on the street was that Sonoma County was "redneck country" and a cultural wasteland. I feared the worst. Sonoma county gained instant approval from my daughter Dian who contrasted it's rustic beauty with Marin County's antiseptic landscape. I was won over by the presence of the NAACP chapter, a predominantly black church, Black Professional Womens' Club, the ACLU, and the Peace and Justice Center; through which I met the active, progressive community of Sonoma county. It is the largest, most visible, most active group of people who are committed to the work of social justice. In this, I believe Sonoma County is most unique. I have been nurtured by and I grew through these associations. Without a doubt the years between my 40th and 58th birthday have been my most productive years. I have come of age in Sonoma county.

ALICIA SANCHEZ, Sebastopol   Greetings to my sisters of the world. I am a union organizer working with predominantly Latino women in different industries. My experience has been that we as women are the key to peace and justice, not only in the work site but in the world. This is why I believe this conference is very important for the future of our survival. Thank you for being there on behalf of all of us. Viva la mujer! Venceremos unida!

DIAN HARDY, Occidental   While my name is not important, let me give it to you anyway: I am Dian Hardy. I live with two once-wild cats in a little house sitting under old redwoods in a small town in northern California. More to the point, however, I will be fifty-six years of age in December; I am in my fullness.

As a committed animal rights activist, I dedicate my life to speaking for those who cannot speak for themselves. In real life, I keep a vegan diet (no flesh, no dairy, no eggs) and thrive on it. I don't wear leather or fur or silk. I study the literature and philosophy of animal rights and keep food and blankets ready in my car for animals in need.

This all came about several years ago when I had an experience of the earth as alive - the Gaia experience. Since then I've seen everything differently; it's as though my young girl is alive again - ardent and hopeful.