Califa is a very real place. It is a swirling, thrumming place of diverse languages, cultures, and ethics. Califa is the name for California given by folks who used to be here, who lived here before the Gold Rush, before Statehood, before Europeans. Califa comes from the same linguistic thread as Yarda as in Yard Sale. Signs for yardas festoon telephone poles with a great range of quality and color. The term Yarda has a basis in Spanish, moving through the complex grammatic rules of even Latin, the language of the oppressor. Spanish place names dot the map up to Canada along this coast. I grew up with Spanish place names 750 miles north of where I now live.
Califa means more, though. Besides the immigrant vigor of this community, where people toil at incredibly difficult jobs for five hours more than most Anglos work each day, we have a polyglot of languages, of cultural beliefs, of music, of family styles. We have multilingual clerks in most retail businesses: that's one of the strengths of the Mexicans who have come here. They follow in the footsteps of their ancestors: the merchant ambassadors who created an empire of trade, business, and culture that spanned four modern country boundaries.
Califa means change. But, this change is so slow sometimes we fail to see the nuances. The bakeries are a great example. I monitor closely the output of the Panaderias--and there are dozens in this small town. Their product lines reflect wave upon wave of influence, from modern TV-advertised sweets like the infamous 47-ingredient Twinkies, akin to the renamed Gansitos--little geese--by Bimbo, the hemisphere's largest baker, to French-influenced croissants, to pastries made especially for El Día de los Muertos in the shapes of skulls and corpses. And chocolate chip cookies right next to the ginger pigs. No ginger men here. Cactus candy sits along side Tic Tacs. Phone cards are taped next to cards for the dark virgin, La Señora, La Virgen de Tepeyac.
The weekend Yardas are also closely monitored as the marketplace of the street. They are the true measure of the economy here and a better indicator than the Dow Jones around Califa. The number of sales and the quantity of merchandise is read by me as avidly as some turn to the Business Section of the New York Times. Which our library recently dropped, even while they continue to subscribe to American Rifleman.
Every way one can act to bring in a bit of income is practiced here, both legal and illegal and both commercial and private. Our town, full of travelers from distant lands, is also full of booty from those trips. Again, mirroring the ancient merchant ambassadors of the Aztec Empire, people bring here what’s needed in trade for what are seen as necessities further South. Mostly guns and girls and drugs, wouldn’t you know.
Since the big department store closed, our town is dependent on large chain Cheapies, as I call Target, K-Mart, and the like. People drive to Salinas to shop at Wal-Mart or Sand City to hit Costco ostensibly to save money, but I think the drive eats up the savings. Not to mention the crafty merchant who encourages shoppers to engage in a sugar haze not unlike the three-martini lunch before entering the store proper. I see people, with glazed-over eyes, slurping huge cups of corporate sugar water while standing immobilized by the choices on the Housewares Aisle.
Califa is more than a place or a way of life; it’s a history of invasion, power shifts, and cultural assertions of dominance. The sweep of change is visible—and alive—here. We’re the ones to watch; we’re the future.
