There was no choice. Jonas’ ailing grandmother had set up solitary residence in Pune and fractured her hip, and frankly, no one else could take the old lady to the loo.

I grew up in the farm labor camps of Monterey County in California, picking fruits and vegetables along with my parents and eleven brothers and sisters. Neither parent was able to attend school growing up, and we relied on each other to survive the hardships of being poor and working in the fields.

My art and social activism stems from my strong conviction that art is needed to make social change a possibility, to help heal the injustice’s faced by people of color around the world. I have the historical experience of the Civil Rights Movement and the Chicano, Black Power Movement, Native American and Anti- War Movements of the 1960s and 70s for my inspiration.

I called her Bonnie because she was pretty and gentle and compliant. Her eyes were big, brown shoe buttons fringed with sable lashes and they could make your mouth water. She was small in stature and perfectly, delightfully well-formed with Woolfolk's brand on her buttock that looked like a mayapple.

She became my Bonnie and she followed me and did my bidding. Was she free? There wasn’t that much free for colored women. She was free to starve like she was when I found her. 

Inside she found a clerk and asked for Hank, and she waited for him by the coin machine, trading in all her pennies for a flimsy receipt that explained she had earned nine dollars.