Manuel M. Melgoza (November 3, 2025)

The year 1973 was filled with turmoil and excitement. It was during my second year of college when I was consumed with faux bravado and idealism.

That summer, friends and I were working as farm hands for a small farmer in Kern County, California. The United Farm Workers union (UFW or La Union) mounted an unprecedented organizational drive among farm-workers throughout the state of California, but faced fierce political opposition.  Even at large agri-business farms where the UFW had won elections among the workers, and sought to exercise its newly-won right to bargain for a contract to improve wages and working conditions of the workers it represented, La Union was encountering stubborn resistance from management. Farm owners, mostly corporations, were declining to compromise and sign off on collective bargaining contracts, with few exceptions.  Consequently, the UFW called a general strike on all farmers, except those with which it had contracts.  For my friends and me, this announcement was a rallying cry.  We quit our jobs at the small farm and joined thousands of fellow farm-workers waving flags and picket signs along the roads next to the largest growers in the San Joaquin Valley.

As strike activity spread, reactions by opponents intensified. Growers hired security guards, made alliances with “goon squads” from a rival Teamsters Union, and attempted to intimidate the picketers. In some areas, the growers exerted their political influence with the local officials, and the County Sheriff’s departments quickly stepped in when called by the growers.  It seemed to us that the Sheriff’s Department was in the growers’ pockets.

The Mass Arrests

On one occasion, several of us “college radicals” were picketing near the roadside at the perimeter of a large corporate farm.  Apparently, the owners called in the Sheriff’s Department because numerous squad cars and some paddy wagons quickly rolled in and began arresting picketers indiscriminately.  The picketers were not putting up resistance, but they were being corralled, arrested, and herded into “paddy wagons.”

Several of us had ridden to the site in a van owned by a friend named Larry, brother of my best friend Mike, who was also among us.  For reasons unknown to me, Larry was caught up in the mass arrest. We heard him calling out to us, so we approached. Larry appeared concerned for our lack of transportation us, and thus asked a nearby deputy who arrested him if he could give us the keys to the van, since he was the driver.  The deputy nodded his consent, and allowed me to approach, while Larry reached out to me with the keys.  As I reached for the keys, someone abruptly grabbed my arm.  It was another deputy, who proceeded to arrest me and pull me toward the paddy wagon.  Despite my attempts to explain, soon the whole bunch of us, along with numerous other picketers, found ourselves crammed in the paddy wagon.

Inside, it was chaotic and noisy, with people yelling and protesting the injustices of being arrested for no valid reason.  Some stomped and screamed insults at the two deputies in the front cab, which was separated from us only by a steel grate.  Others began to shift their weight to rock the paddy wagon from side to side.  The deputies shouted insults back at us, and sprayed mace into our faces through the grate. As the paddy wagon drove off, the exchange continued all the way to the County jail.

Those inside plotted (in Spanish so the deputies couldn’t hear) and agreed that when we arrived at the jail, we would not reveal our names or addresses as a sign of protest and non-cooperation.  Everyone agreed to stick to the plan.

When we arrived at the County jail, the deputies crammed us into a large “holding tank” while they unhurriedly booked every individual.  They made us wait in the holding tank, knowing that whatever charges they filed against us would never get to trial.

However, during the booking process, our non-cooperation plan crumbled.  The deputy who was booking me asked my name. I remembered what I was supposed to do.  But, I saw that others were freely giving out their names and other forms of identification. I paused for a moment to re-think, but the deputy plucked my wallet out of my rear pants pocket before I could respond. I protested, “Hey, you can’t do that!”  He replied arrogantly, “You’re in jail!  You don’t have any rights in jail!”  My driver’s license told the deputy everything he wanted to know. At that point, it was no use. So I abandoned my earlier resolve.

After the booking process, they put us back into the stuffy holding tank and made us wait some more. For what reason? Who knows? I noticed that Mike had not returned from the booking area. I asked my comrades what happened to Mike.  Someone said Mike had refused to identify himself, and that a deputy led him away.

Inside the holding tank was a TV monitor in a ceiling corner. There we saw Mike, who was alone in a different room with a shiny cement floor. Much later, as Mike would explain, he had been taken to be confined in a “cold tank” as punishment for his non-cooperation.

The deputy who attempted to “book” Mike took offense to Mike’s refusal to give his identity, so he told him he knew of a place where Mike “might remember who he was.”  He took him to what they called the “drunk tank” or “the cooler.”  It is a room with concrete walls and a cement floor. It has a large fan on one end, and blows cold air through the room.  The deputies put “drunks” in that room to sober them quickly. The deputy had removed Mike’s shoes and socks, and left him in just pants and a T-shirt, then turned on the fan and left.  The room was as cold as a refrigerator. The deputy returned in about 10-15 minutes and asked Mike if he remembered his name yet.  Mike said no. The deputy left again, indicating to Mike that he could stay in there as long as he didn’t remember. The sequence repeated itself until Mike finally gave up, and noticing that none of his companions had made it into that “cooler.” 

Mike asked me what happened with “our agreement.” Ashamed, I told him the deputy had pulled my wallet, with my identification, out of my pants pocket, and it was no use to go along with the plan. I told him that none of the others had stuck with the plan either – he was the only one. Mike, slender and standing only about 5’ 6” had more guts than his burly “macho” friends and companions!  (I’ve always admired Mike’s heart and courage.)

Interestingly, Mike didn’t harbor any resentment over the ordeal.  He was loyal, and probably just glad to be out of the cold tank and back among “friends.” Sometime later, the deputies released all of us “on our own recognizance” and, as we anticipated, all the bogus charges (“malicious mischief”) were later dropped.

Over the ensuing years, mutual friends joked about how Mike had been the only one of about 30 so-called “machos” brave enough to stick with the plan, at least to the point of suffering.  All the others had “scattered” like chickens, despite our previous adamancy. Though the proportions of this incident pale by comparison, I wonder if Mike had a small taste of what Jesus felt like when his so-called followers let him down when the going got tough.

From that time many of His disciples went back and walked with Him no more.  “You do not want to leave too, do you?” Jesus asked the twelve.  Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.  We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”  (John 6:66-68)

Yet, despite these assurances, and more from Peter himself, who claimed, “Lord, I will lay down my life for you,” they still forsook him.  (John 13:37-38) After Jesus’ crucifixion, many disciples lost courage and scattered.

I am thankful that although Jesus knows our weaknesses, just as He did Peter’s, He doesn’t forsake us. I am grateful for people like John, the Beloved Disciple, who (unlike Peter) overcame fear for self and accompanied Jesus into the high priest’s inner courtyard after being arrested, and later crucified.  But I am equally grateful that the Lord doesn’t abandon those who are “weak in the flesh, but willing in spirit.”  (Mark 14:38)  Despite Peter’s denials uttered in fear and weakness, he turned out to be an outspoken leader for Christ’s early church.  Likewise, in spite of my failings and my weaknesses, the Lord forgives and continues to bless me as I continue my walk with Him.  Mike could have used the jail incident to mark the last time he would trust his companions to stand behind him in tough times. But he did not.

Jesus continues to trust us to make righteous choices. After all, He sticks “closer to us than a brother.” He is faithful to be there to help us up when we stumble and fail to live up to our own commitments.

The Shooting Death

Later that summer, God presented another opportunity for me to choose the right thing to do under a different form of peer pressure. On that occasion, several hundred picketers were lined up along all sides of a country road intersection.  We knew that there were workers, who still had not been convinced to join our strike, that used this intersection on their way to and from work.  The purpose of the picket line was to pressure these non-striking workers to walk out and strike against their employer, giving the farm-worker movement more bargaining leverage with all growers who employed farm-workers.

Shortly after quitting time on the nearest farm, cars began rolling past the intersection as the workers headed home.  People on the picket line shouted slogans and various other statements and/or insults.  As more cars passed, the crowd grew unruly, and the passing cars’ passengers returned the shouts or sounded their horns.  Momentarily, the traffic flow paused. Then, a lone car slowly approached the intersection.

As that car slowly passed, some picketers began shouting.  Several dirt clods were thrown in the car’s direction. A large dirt clod or a rock landed on the car, bounced on the trunk, and rolled off. I heard someone in the car yell out, “Van a ver!”  This is Spanish for a commonly expressed threat akin to “you’re gonna get it.”  I couldn’t tell which of the car’s two occupants shouted the threat. One of them, dark-skinned, was hunched down on the passenger side, wearing a red, white and blue cap over his or her long hair.  The driver was an older man who appeared to be Filipino.

The car headed away from where the bulk of picketers were congregated at the intersection, and toward where some picketers had parked their cars. Then, a succession of gunshots erupted from the car’s direction.  Someone in the passing car was firing shots at the picketers’ cars, it seemed. I was concerned with my car, which was lined up in that row.  A moment later, I saw an old man, being helped by his wife, emerge from between two cars that were in the line of fire. He was struggling to walk.  Panic struck.

The wounded man was rushed away to a hospital.  I learned later that the man was someone I knew, and he and his wife happened to be in the eventual line of fire only because they had purposely stayed away from the crowd to avoid confrontations. He later died from gunshot wounds.

The police interviewed many of those at the scene, including me.  During my interview, I told the detective what I saw, but I omitted the part about the dirt clods and/or stones that were at the car by the picketers. I felt pressure from the group not to reveal those details of provocation.

The car’s occupants were caught and arrested. Months later, the younger passenger wearing the red, white, and blue hat on the day in question went on trial for murder. The driver, an old man, had died in the interim.  It turned out that the young man on trial was an old friend of my friend Mike, and Mike seemed convinced that it was not the young man who had done any shooting that day.  I also learned that one of the defense’s positions was that the occupants in the car were provoked to retaliate by rock-throwing picketers, and that whomever did the shooting was only attempting to damage the parked cars. That defense would not have excused the crime, but it would reduce it to something less than murder.

I felt guilt for not having told the detective the full story beforehand and partly responsible for the seriousness of the charges that were levied against the young man. In fact, it had crossed my mind when I first heard the gunshots that the shooter was indeed attempting to damage only the cars. I didn’t even see the wounded man come out from between the parked cars until after the shooting stopped.

Under the judge’s orders, witnesses were told to wait in the hallway while the others testified, to avoid knowing how the others testified, to prevent witness collusion or being influenced to testify by what others had said.  While waiting for my turn to testify, along with perhaps a dozen other picketers, an intense-looking man whom I’d known for years and who was a friend of the deceased picketer, sternly told those waiting that we should “stick with the story,” i.e., that no one provoked the shooting. He looked at me directly to get my affirmation, and I said I was only going to tell what happened.

When I was called to testify, I recounted all that I remembered witnessing, including the hurling of dirt clods/rocks preceding the shooting. I was asked to explain my failure to tell the detective about that.  I explained that I had felt pressure not to say it initially, but that I realized later that it was wrong for me to cause someone to be penalized more severely because of something that I had done or failed to do.

Eventually, the charges were downgraded to manslaughter.  I heard from Mike that the main reason was that there were numerous inconsistencies among the many witnesses. 

As the result of my declination to go along with “the story” pushed by some of my comrades, I lost some “friends” from among the picketers who wanted me to twist my testimony to fit their narrative. Fear of being ostracized from a group has its consequences. But I regained some respect from my valued friend Mike for righting a wrong.  I thank God for being the so-called “Lord of second chances,” – for I’ve had multiple “second chances.”

The Lord has been good to me even before I surrendered to Him. I attribute it to God’s providence and grace. He has inscribed in each human being, saved or not, “the light of conscience,” (Romans 2:14-16; John 1:9) so that we are all without excuse when choosing between right and wrong, or between fear and faith.

The era in which we live seems fraught with choices between going along with a group’s ideology and making decisions based on righteousness. Whether we “stand firm” in faith depends on whether we respond rightly to the “light” we are given, an ongoing challenge illustrated so well by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:15-8:16.

Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. . . . Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! . . . through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you[a] free from the law of sin and death. . . .

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. . .

You . . . are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. . . But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life[d] because of righteousness. . . Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. . .  For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.