My name is Beatris Alvarez Bernstine maiden name Martinez and I’m 80 years old.
I’m sharing some experiences in my life that helped create and change me through the years. These stand out for me in my life history.
My parents came from Mexico and settled in California.
Me and my siblings are first generation Americans. I am 4th from the youngest of 12 children; however, I grew up as 1 of 11 as an older sister died before she was a year old. I had 5 sisters and 5 brothers.
“I grew up in San Leandro where my parents could not shop at many stores because my mom was very white skinned, and my papa was very dark and indigenous looking. They were able to shop in a neighborhood store and at Swans and Farmers Market in Oakland.”
The summer before I turned 6 my Papa took the entire family to Gilroy to pick prunes. My papa, a carpenter, was going to add onto the owners house and the rest of us would be doing work in the orchard. I stayed behind with mom to care for my younger brother and sister, who were 3 and 1 year old, while Mom got lunch going. We would then go to the orchard taking a kerosene stove and lunch. We would pick prunes until it was time for mom to go back and get dinner started.
An extremely huge change was my Papa dying less than 2 weeks after I turned 7. He was 43 and mom was 2 months shy of being 43. So, we were a family of 11 children the youngest a month old and the eldest getting ready to turn 21.
I didn’t know we were “POOR” until someone labeled us. I knew we didn’t have much money, but we were never hungry and never felt like poor people. And always had playmates.
Because of Papa’s death, each of my siblings took over taking care of the family financially.
At 14 I worked in the apricot orchards for a summer to earn money to buy my school uniform. I cut apricots in half in preparation for drying. I received 50 cents a tray…the trays were about 5-6 feet long and 3 feet wide. I was able to move to the conveyor belt where I was paid 60 cents per lug but you couldn’t move until they shut down the conveyor belt down.
I would also babysit and iron to earn money.
I learned to sew at 14 because, at that time, it was cheaper to sew. (this prepared me for making my wedding dress.)
At 18 I completed my first income tax where I claimed head of household with 4 dependents. Needless to say I was audited.
“I got married at 21. But it was marrying a black man in 1965 that created a fracture with a couple of my siblings for a few years.”
This exposed us to housing and personal discrimination. Even more so when we had 2 sons.
Our oldest son is gay and came out when he was in his teens. Although I kinda knew when he was about 10.
Our younger son was all about girls. He is married and has 2 beautiful daughters who are 24 and 29.
I worked at IBM for over 23 years and at Alta Bates Hospital for 20 years.
In my 40’s: I became a lector at church which means I can proclaim scripture at mass. This helped my spiritual life tremendously and led to new lifelong friends.
I became a volunteer organizer in a faith-based organization in Oakland (called OCO) where we made changes in our neighborhoods, schools and city. We learned how to research info and to speak to all our elected officials. For me, I went on to our California coalition and then our National contingent. This gave me an opportunity to meet so many people that enriched my life. Politicians included. Through this organization, I had the opportunity to travel in California, Washington DC and other states as well.
It also gave me the insight to realize how much I had internalized the discrimination I had encountered through the years as a brown woman and being married to a black man.
My mother was 4 days shy of turning 96 when she died. I was 60 and felt like an orphan.
My husband became terminally ill in 2009 and I took a leave of absence to care for him and then worked part-time in order to maintain our health insurance. He died in 2010 just before I turned 65.
I retired when I was 68 but worked occasionally until I was over 70.
In 2019 my sister Luz and I took a 3-week road trip. We visited family, 7 national parks and touched 10 states. It was a great experience and gave me a chance to take a ton of pictures; which I really enjoy doing. We drove about 4800 miles. I also turned 75 during our road trip.
I have also been given the opportunity to travel. I visited my granddaughter in Beirut where she attended the American University of Beirut for a semester.
I also had an opportunity to visit our first international faith-based organization in Rwanda. It was such an emotional visit and a bit of pride to see what was originally started in Oakland make such changes in Rwanda.
My next trip is in June to Bath, England for my granddaughter’s wedding.
Over the last 9 years I have unfortunately lost 5 siblings.
There are 6 of us left, 4 women and 2 men. But I am so grateful that we are close. We are not only siblings, but we are friends.
“I come from a family of carpenters. My father was a carpenter, all 5 of my brothers, my younger son and about 9 nephews are carpenters. 3-4 who own construction companies.”
I have 40+ nieces and nephews… over 50 great nieces and nephews and I have not counted the great greats
My new experiences include, to my great delight, a wonderful Elders Dance Group. And I look forward to new experiences wherever and whenever they come.
Storyteller Bea Bernstine did not provide a biography
