“The Tractor Princess” draws on excerpts from an oral history interview with Antoinette Yvonne DeOcampo-Lechtenberg, which is a part of a community archive and research initiative called Watsonville is in the Heart.
Watsonville is in the Heart highlights the stories of Filipino families from the greater Pajaro Valley region in California. Antoinette paints a picture of growing up in a rural farming community in the 1960s and 1970s, as the daughter of a Filipino immigrant from the Manong generation.
Watsonville is in the Heart originated with community organizer and Tobera Project founder Roy Recio, and the team now includes UC Santa Cruz faculty and students. To learn more about this community archive and research initiative, and to hear Antoinette’s full interview, please visit wiith.ucsc.edu.
Related Reading
“Storytellers Of The Pajaro Valley” by Christina Ayson Plank and Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez
Little Manila is in the Heart by Dawn Mabalon
America is in the Heart by Carlos Bulosan
Vanishing Filipino Americans: The Bridge Generation by Peter Jamero