Oral History Collaborations

In this interview, originally recorded in person, Juanita Sulay Wilson and Alan Wilson speak with Dr. Kathleen "Kat" Cruz Gutierrez, a member of the Watsonville is in the Heart project team, and her father, Hermes Gutierrez. Wilson gives an overview of her family's history settling in the Pajaro Valley and her father's experience working in the fields along the California coast as migrant workers. She details her parents' experience navigating race relations in the Pajaro Valley as a mixed-race couple. Wilson also discusses what it was like growing up in the Pajaro Valley as a mixed-race woman and the desire of her extended family to shelter her and her siblings from the racism they experienced as Filipino agricultural laborers. She also discusses the development of Watsonville alongside the changing Filipino demographics after the 1950s. Joined by her husband, Alan Wilson, they discussed how they met and moved up to San Francisco. Lastly, Wilson discusses her extracurricular activities including hula and archiving her family's personal materials.