Purita Mesa Oral History Interview

Amanda Belantara: Today I'm speaking with Purita Mesa, social worker and former staff member at the Chicano Studies Library at UC Berkeley. The interview was conducted for Bibliopolítica, a digital history of the Chicano Studies Library. The interview took place in the Ethnic Studies Changemaker Podcast Studio at UC Berkeley, California on September 15th, 2023. Engineered by Angelica Garcia, the interviewer is Amanda Belantara.

Amanda Belantara: Thank you for meeting with us all today. We're here with Richard Chabrán and Lili Castillo Speed as well. Could you start off by telling us a bit about yourself, where you grew up, what you studied, and the kind of work you do?

Purita Mesa: I grew up in New York and then came here to UC Berkeley as a freshman. The very beginning I thought I wanted to be a librarian eventually because of actually the Chicano Studies Library and the people I met became a social worker.

Amanda Belantara: Going back to the time that you were a student here in Berkeley, can you talk a little bit about the atmosphere on campus and how was it that you first came to hear about the Chicano Studies Library?

Purita Mesa: I started off in the dorms and it was pretty isolating. I just couldn't connect with anybody. I couldn't find any Latinos. I think I saw somebody once and actually she helped me. I was crying in the middle of campus and she came up to me and said, "What's wrong with you?" And she said, "I didn't get into any classes. In those days we didn't have computers, so we had these computer cards and you would hand them in and they would select you." And I ended up with no classes that first semester or quarter. We were on a quarter system. She said, "Let me help you." So she took me to classes. She said, "Let's see freshmen. Let's see what you can take." And she said, "Just take any classes. It's your first quarter." And that's how I made it through that time. The second third semester I met Elva. We became friends. That summer I thought I wanted to work at the Chicano Studies Library. Libraries had always been an escape for me. At school my mother would dress us up in our Sunday best to go to the library and collect books. It was always like this huge, beautiful place that I could explore. So it was always really important to me. And so I had work study money and I called Jose Arce and I called him and I called him. Actually he told me that he hired me because I called him so many times. He said he had to hire someone who was that eager. That was like the most beautiful experience for me. I got to work with other people who looked like me, discovered a new library and new information that I knew nothing about because I really didn't know much about Chicanos. I was one of the few Puerto Ricans around. Actually we didn't have a lot of Central or South Americans on campus. So I started learning more and more about the music and stuff and so we worked hard. But we also spent time talking and connecting with each other and it was really important. I was like at my happiest that I had ever been.

Amanda Belantara: You mentioned Elva. Is this Elva Yañez?

Purita Mesa: Yes.

Amanda Belantara: Was she the one that introduced you or told you about the Chicano Studies Library?

Purita Mesa: Yeah, she was working on a new classification system and was showing me I was so impressed. My brain would not have worked that way. So I thought, wow, this woman is amazing. Yeah, so she was the one that told me about the Chicano Studies Library.

Amanda Belantara: The classification system that you mentioned, do you remember much about how it developed? Was Jose involved in that?

Purita Mesa: I know that Jose was really excited about it, but I don't remember a lot of the detail.

Amanda Belantara: So you called and called and called Jose and he said, all right, you want to be in with us that bad. I will give you the job.

Purita Mesa: After saying many times that he hadn't decided yet and I thought, yeah, I'm going to make you decide.

Amanda Belantara: Can you remember your first day when you got started or maybe your first time entering the library as a space?

Purita Mesa: I don't really remember. I remember the space, remember the coffee in the corner. But he had also hired other people, too, and just meeting them and looking at the collection, being introduced to the collection and what our duties were. And Juan Gonzalez was there, too. I remember the whole summer. I don't remember particular days. I remember happiness.

Amanda Belantara: Do you remember any other little details of what the library looked like? Like, what would you see if you were painting a picture for somebody?

Purita Mesa: There was a table as you walked in and like a desk. That's where Juan sat. And it must have been two because Jose also. But there was a huge window. It was a very welcoming place that I knew people should come to. It was my first time there, actually.

Amanda Belantara: What was it like for you to encounter that space? How did you feel when you arrived? And what was it like to see that collection?

Purita Mesa: I felt like I had arrived and I just wanted to dig in and look at all the books and read more and more. Of course, I had to do work, too. But there were many times, like, when I was putting books back that I would pick up other ones and just like look through them. And I felt like I was home. That's really what I felt like after feeling so isolated.

Amanda Belantara: And so what kind of work were you doing in the library?

Purita Mesa: We were just putting back books. Juan and Jose were opening up new things that had come through that they had purchased. That was it, just preparing for the new school year and getting books out on the shelf, getting things organized.

Amanda Belantara: Did you have the books set up in a particular way?

Purita Mesa: Jose had really spent some time at the other libraries and had classified them somehow. And that's when Elva thought, well, you know, Latinos fit in in a different way. They've let us out in this system. You mentioned that you would be handling a lot of the books in the collection and seeing new things coming in. Was there anything in the collection that particularly caught your eye or anything memorable that you were excited to see? There were novels. I remember, like, we were just talking about cookbooks. So for me, like, learning how the difference between Puerto Rican cookery and Mexican was really important. And so I spent a lot of time looking at those cookbooks also. I remember the series, Aztlán. Those are the things that stand out for me. But there were, you know, novels and stuff that I discovered. And when other students would come, actually, when the school year started and I also got work study for the year because I wasn't going to let that go, I would know where things were. I had already been looking for myself.

Amanda Belantara: What was it like there working with your other colleagues in the library?

Purita Mesa: I think that we had found a home with each other and we spent time with each other. And actually, there were like times when we would go and eat somewhere and just laugh and enjoy each other. Was unlike other libraries in that it was a gathering place, a place for you to study, a place for you to meet with other people. Like, I'll meet you at the library. That was always a thing we would say to each other, where if you had groups that you wanted to meet with, that you would. Like, we were allowed to come and have meetings there. We would spread information there. It was always a place that you could come for help. If I had known that my first semester or my first quarter, I could have gone to the library and said, I need help. And I'm sure that I would have had maybe two or three people laughing at me and helping me. Yeah, because that's the kind of place it was. I think there was a calling that we knew that we were there to help each other. That's what we did.

Amanda Belantara: And so how did you feel doing the work that you were doing there? What did it feel like to be amongst the collection and helping make the library come alive?

Purita Mesa: For me, it was wonderful. I had told you that I was the kind of kid who went to the library instead of playing, doing recess. When I found that they would let me go there during lunch, that's I would skip lunch and just stay there at the library. So for me, a library was a gold mine and a wonderful place, except that this time it wasn't an escape for me anymore. It was a place for me to come and be a part of something.

Amanda Belantara: How would you feel that the work that you did at the library connects to what you do now? How did it impact your life after you left Berkeley?

Purita Mesa: During the time that I was there, we created this thing called Mujeres del Movimiento. It's a group of women and we did different things. And one of the things that, aside from putting on a conference, that was a huge, huge event. We also tried to connect with the community. A man in the community who had been a big influencer during the huge movement, Señor Munoz. So he said, you know, some of these kids in the Berkeley schools need tutoring. So it went from the library to Mujeres del Movimiento, because that's where we would meet. And that's where we created things and talked to doing this specific community thing, like tutoring. But when you went to go tutor, they would say, "Ay necesito esto, tengo que pagar esto." And then you would help the family. I would end up helping the family with other things. And I thought, "This, maybe, this is what I want to do. I do this well." So I think that that's why I became a social worker instead of a librarian. Actually, I didn't even know there was anything called a master's in social welfare until Jose Ace's wife went. So I thought, "What? There's a school like that? I want to do that."

Amanda Belantara: You mentioned this gathering of women, this big symposium that you put on, which sounds incredible. What did it mean for you as a woman on campus as well to gather with other Latinas in the community here at Berkeley to have the space in the library? What was that like at the time?

Purita Mesa: It was really important. I think we did Mujeres de Movimiento because there was a women's movement going on at the same time. And we were pretty powerful and smart. And we wanted to establish ourselves that way. And I think that some of the men on campus didn't see us that way. And I think that was the impetus to meet together and try to do things on our own. There were a lot of silly comments from the guys, too. Why do you have to do this by yourself? Why are you separating yourself from us? And it was really important. So not only did we pursue some intellectual things, and we also thought about helping the community, but we also met and laughed and talked and were really intimate with each other as women. And that was so important to separate ourselves and be alone and spend that time together. Is there anything else that you would like to share about your experience of being a worker at the library in its early days? I learned a lot about California and Chicanos and Mexican history through the library because I was surrounded by stuff all the time. And also the librarians were always eager to share information about the stuff coming in. And that's what I really loved, too. You know, like when they were going through the new journals that came in and Richard, too, like would say, and Jose, like they were both really eager to teach. I like tried to absorb anything I could get. Like, this is a new journal. Look what this these people are coming up with. So I always felt privileged that I that I could see those things before anybody else did. And then I knew what was coming in. Also, it was a place for community, was a place for a gathering. And we would talk about what we were going to do that weekend. It was really an important place, especially at the time that I went. There weren't too many of us on campus. That's what I'm telling you, that we could... I don't know if they can do that now. But we knew who like who has that book. I'm going to go get them. I know where they live. So it was a powerful place to feel like you were a part of something in this huge place that had a lot of people who did not look like us.