you can hear us now: the story of radio movimiento

8/13/2019 You Can Hear Us Now: The Story of Radio Movimiento

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You Can Hear Us Now:

The Story ofRadio Movimiento, La Voz del Pueblo

Taking mass communications with PCUNscommunity base

from someday to every day

By Larry Kleinman

Introduction

Farmworkersby the thousandsfrom Mexicoin Oregons fertileWillamette Valleywho harvest fruits, vegetables, Christmas trees, grass seed,and nursery stock... hard labor for minimum wage and sometimes lesshoused incramped, dimly-lit, stuffy cabins, trailers, apartments...isolated.

Farmworkersby the handfulscontemplating speaking outto the laborcontractorsthe growersto other workersto the community.Conditions mustbe improved.

How will anyone hear? If enough people heard, wouldnt it make adifference?

For a half century of growing seasons and harvests, this scene surelyunfolded countless times. We dontactually know how many times because nooneheard. Workers generally didnt speak out. Likely, it was fear of retaliationfiring, deportation, even violencethat stopped them. Workers often lacked thesupport they needed and deserved. Even so, where could a worker expect to go toreach enough people?

On November 20, 2006, something in this scene changed fundamentally.Farmworkers and other immigrant workers suddenly had an outlet, one that couldreach thousands. A radio station: Radio Movimiento, La Voz del Pueblo. ThatsThe Peoples Voice, broadcasting on 96.3 FM in Woodburn, Oregon.

DidRadio Movimientomake the difference? And whator whocreated

a station called Movement Radio?

It took a Movement: Ours

FoundingRadio Movimiento surfaced as a recognizable flow in 2006. Butthe headwaters extend far back, even before the point when our Movement firstbecame a sustained trickle in Oregon. That occurred in 1977, when a small


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collection of students and leaders in the Mexican community joined withprogressive lawyers and legal workers in Portland, myself included, to found theWillamette Valley Immigration Project. The Project set out to be a David takingon the Immigration and Naturalization Service Goliath and their raids reigningterror on the community.

Eight years later, the Projectbroadened the Movements mission tochallenge a second GoliathOregons multi-billion dollar agricultural-industrialcomplex. In 1985, the Project facilitated the birth of PCUN, Pineros yCampesinos Unidos del Noroeste, Oregons farmworker union. Today, PCUN isOregons largest Latino organization and the primary organizational enginepropelling and steering our Movement, now composed of nine inter-relatedorganizations, with combined annual operating budgets exceeding $2,000,000,employing fifty staff in three Willamette Valley cities.

Together, these organizations reach and engage an astounding variety ofpeople and entities: farmworkers, Latino youth, new immigrants, new citizens,immigrants leaving agricultural for construction and service work; allies in smallbusiness, labor unions, religious congregations, students, environmentalists;human rights, civil liberties and community groups; the media, public officials,law enforcement, local educators, growers, consumers and financial institutions.

Our Movements work is similarly comprehensive. We organize in theworkplace for respect and fair treatment. We raise public awareness andunderstanding of farmworkers and immigrants. We build coalitions and alliances.

We advocate and lobby for farmworker rights and immigrants rights, and foreducational equity. We hold government and agribusiness corporationsaccountable. We bring lawsuits to outlaw dangerous pesticides and to overturnlaws discriminating against workers. We build farmworker housing in townnothidden off in the countrysideand manage it with farmworker participation. Wehelp families gain legal immigration status. We organize adult educationprograms, economic self-help, and cultural activities.

The list could go on.

Radio Movimiento,PCUNs low-power FM radio station, unquestionablyqualifies as one of the seven wonders of the PCUN world.Establishing itrequired Herculean efforts. Like all wonders, it put in our hands powerful newcapacity. It significantly altered our self-image. It ushered in exponential change.Struggling to achieve it could well have left us dangerously weakened.

Like all wonders, we built it to endure and make us stronger. Building itcertainly did.


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Part I: Radio at the Heart of the Spanish-speaking community

In virtually all Latino immigrant communities, Spanish-language radio hasserved as themass communications medium. The combination of low-costlistener access, circumvention of literacy barriers, coverage in a sizeable

geographic area, cultural and entertainment content, and immigrants hunger forconnection with each other and with reminders of home bonded the community toradio. Radio, in turn, coalesced and shaped the community, propelling social andcommercial interactions (dances, civic events, fledgling Latino-owned specialtystores, employment opportunities). Listening to Spanish-language radio becamethe simplest, most available means to combat isolation and alienation and to fosterin its place a sense of belonging.

By the late 1970s, the town of Woodburn had become well established as acultural and commercial center for the Willamette Valleys farmworker

community. Latinos then comprised a third of the towns 9,000 inhabitants. In2007, the towns population surpassed23,000. The 2000 Census officiallydetermined that Latinos make up the majority and the percentage of Latinoscontinues to increase.

In the early 1970s, Spanish-language radio broadcast in the WillametteValley was virtually unchallenged for Latino consumer loyalty. A few communitynewspapers, published weekly or monthly, came and went, but they were alwaysmarginalized by distribution challenges, literacy barriers, and lack of resources.

Thirty-five years later, the Latino communitys exponential growth and thetechnology revolution have spawned a media explosion in radio but also aroundand competing with radio. From a single AM station broadcasting eight hours inSpanish every Saturday, radio in Spanish is now round-the-clock on three FMstations and four AM stations. Basic cable television packages include channelsfor Univision and Telemundo; deluxe cable and TV dish services offer dozensof channels direct from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Still, foradult immigrants, Spanish-language radio dominates, especially in workplaces anddrive-time. In radio there remains the allure of local reflection, information, andeven celebrity, akin to looking in the mirrorwhich no amount of national orinternational media can fully supplant.

Our introduction to radio

When the founders of the Willamette Valley Immigration Project arrived inthe Valley in the mid-1970s, we encountered Spanish-language radio which waslimited but well-entrenched. It seemed the height of efficiency and effectivenessfor us to slip a DJ the text for a short public service announcement publicizing an


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event or to wrangle a few minutes of live on-air conversation about a timely issue.This radio presence was always ad hoc and it didnt always produce big turn-outs,but it did generate awareness. Without fail, folks would remark I heard[you/that] on the radio.

We considered ourselves fortunate to have fairly regular radio access,thanks to personal relationships with the engineer, Hector Pichardo (who went byHector de la O in radio land) and several of the regular DJs on KWRC, 940 AMin Woodburn. Like most rural Oregon AM radio stations, KWRC catered to awhite, grower-oriented audience, playing country music and featuring the dailyfarm report. Bespeaking the strength of this identity, KWRC owners weredelighted to obtain the KWBY call letters (replacing KWRC)andimmediately dubbed their station KoWBoY.

KWBY owners introduced Spanish programming as a commercial

experiment and quickly saw its huge potential. However, their inability tounderstand the broadcast content left them ill-at ease. They made a business-driven decision to gradually expand Spanish programming beyond Saturdays. TheLatino DJs understood or sensed this. For most of them, it showed in theirdealings with us. Since we were generally regarded as trouble-makers and/oractivists engaging controversial issues, some DJs discouraged or even denied usaccess. Usually, their resistance stemmed from some mixture of motives.

Almost all DJs were or became successful dance promotersanothertestament to radios mobilization powers. If allowing us access cost a DJ his radio

job, hed lose his entre for event promotion. Among the half dozen regular DJswere a labor contractor and a notary public who chargedfor immigration anddocumentation services (an unauthorized practice of law). They felt affronted orthreatened by the content of some of our messages which criticized workplaceexploitation or warned listeners not to patronize charlatans. One DJ was aconservative good old boy from Texas who simply disagreed with our politicalviews.

Frequently enough, our message conveyed an anti-exploitation tone ormeaning which landed a little too close to home for those DJs. The Encisobrothers, Jos and Arturo, and Vicente Lpez openly welcomed us, often devotingfifteen minutes to conversation. They chose to disregard the possibility ofretaliation. We credited this to a combination of daring, genuine concern forcommunity interest, and at least a pinch of personal image enhancement (i.e., ascommunity champion). Jos was the most enthusiastic probably because hewas, himself, a rabble-rouser. He had helped lead a walk-out by Chicano studentsat nearby Gervais High School in 1972. Of all the DJs, he employed the most


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irreverent style and persona, unpredictably interjecting comedic banter in our(usually) serious topic.

Hector de la O occupied a category of his own in three respects. First, heanchored the thirty-minute community affairs program at 12:30 which kicked

off every Saturday afternoon of Spanish-language broadcast. Hector generallyaccommodated us, even if we gave him little or no advance notice, thoughsometimes he could spare us only a brief interlude. Second, he engineered the restof the afternoons programming for the other DJs and sometimes took over in theirabsence. That meant greater opportunity for us and/or repeated announcement ofour message. Third, Hectorsmanner of dress, which few listeners would haveimagined, ranged from military fatigues one week and Central American folkloricgarb another, to cholo-style khakis and a Pendleton shirt the next.

We came to count on access to KWBY, but it always seemed precarious.

On any given week, we might be told that we had to cool it or wait until nextweek. Our on-air reports in May 1982 about the INSs Operation Jobs raids inthe Woodburn area stand out as one such occasion. INS agents roved the streetson and off for a week and set up a temporary checkpoint on Highway 99E innearby Hubbard. Though we were careful not to advocate lawbreaking (e.g.,abetting harboring of undocumented immigrants by describing how they mightavoid detection), our accounts of immigrants non-cooperation and of ourcommunity vigilance patrols hit a nerve. Much as sympathetic DJs wanted thecommunityand knew the community itself wantedto hear our information,they rushed us through it and then clearly signaled that we should layofffor a

while. At a moment of greatest need and utility, radio access was suddenly inshort supply. Even a PSA (public service announcement) became too much toask.

Our increasing activism and community base-buildinglargely focused onimmigration, police and grower repressionplaced an ever greater premium onradio broadcast access even as it wore our welcome at KWBY ever thinner. Theatmosphere turned especially chilly in October 1983 when a Woodburn Police Sgt.Kay Boutwell shot and killed Jos Calvarin, a local farmworker, with little, if anyjustification. The Project responded by launching a new organization, theCommunity United for Justice, seeking police accountability, a topic way too hotfor KWBY.

Even during the times when crisis faded and the political weather thawedslightly, we felt increasingly cramped by the constraints inherent in beingguests. Ideas like more in-depth feaures, such as worker interviews, was out ofthe question.


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style, and topical themes. We pulled together long-play record albums, 45-RPMsingles, and cassette tapes of both current popular and vintage protest music,much of it belonging to Ramn. We choseLevntate, Campesinoby Mexicanpolitical activist and singer/composer Jos de Molina as our opening and closingtheme song. Enterprisingly as always, Ramn moved to get us on the comp

distribution list of the major Mexican and Chicano music record labels, bringing aregular flow of the latest releases on 45s.

It took us at least a couple of programs to get our flow down. Javier provedto be a naturalrelaxed, low-key, engaging, and confidentwhether reading anews item, conducting an interview, or commenting extemporaneously. His yearsas a political activist in rural Michoacan honed his ability to listen. His capacity tokeep the audience in mind served him exceedingly well on the radio. He alsobrought a solid grounding in movement and political history, evident in hisfrequent commentaries on Mexican Revolution and resistance heroes. PCUN

members had recognized Javiers leadership qualities and elected him to thePCUN board at the organizations first annual convention in 1985.

Ramn brought his engaging vitality and personality, his pointed politicalcommentary and his affinity for pop music. His Spanish vocabulary occasionallyfailed him. If Javier didnt insert a quick correction or re-phrasing, the audienceprobably got the drift of Ramns meaninganyway. I played mostly an off-microle, helping with production and copy editing, but I did occasionally conduct apre-recorded interview.

Our contract with KWBY gave us little access to the stations limitedfacilities, shoe-horned into a small office suite in a Woodburn strip mall. Weknew immediately that some of our best opportunities for broadcast content wouldnot materialize at KWBY studios on Sundays between 7:00 and 8:00 PM.Workers came to PCUN on any given day with stories to tell. They might not becomfortable at the KWBY studio, or be able to get another ride into town. Theymight also simply get cold feet about speaking out publicly.

To capture their stories, we assembled a simple recording roomtoo crudeto call a studioin PCUN headquarters media center, a 10-foot by 12-footoffice containing the light table for newsletter and leaflet layout, now long-sincerendered obsolete by computer desktop design. In the classic PCUN fashion, wescrounged donated, second-hand equipmenta primitive four-track mixer, stereoamp, tape deck, and single-tray CD playerand commandeered the twomicrophones and stands we had acquired to use as a make-shift public addresssystem (plugging them into my two-channel Fender guitar amp). Somebodybrought in a few pairs of earphones and a turntable. We set up it all up on afolding table, andLa Hora Campesinaproductions was in business.


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The studio not only made interviews possible, but also some rudimentaryediting, screening new music, and pre-recording news items. We translated storiesfrom local papers or adapted articles fromLa Opinion, Los AngelesSpanish-language daily paper to which we subscribed expressly to glean content forLa

Hora Campesina. Occasionally,LHC featured an original news story and even afew exclusives.

TheLHC team recruited Rodolfos brother,Felix who had a knack forrhyming poetry. He composed and read a few long pieces with political themes(Poema de La Huelga and Poema de La MujerOde to the Strike, Ode toWomen) but his signature material was four-line, slang-filled bits which Felixrecited with appropriate voice inflections. These became a regular part ofintroducing or signing off the program, and earned him the nickname of ElPoeta. Heres one version (with loose translation) ofhisLHC sign-off message:

No se me agiten paisanos. Dont lose heart on me, homies.Por hoy, nos vamos a callar. For today, were through.Pero ac nos uachamos el Martes But well meet here Tuesday;No me vayan a fallar. Im counting on you.

Felix recruited several friends, also farmworkers, with a flair forperformance. The trio became Cholo, Lolo & Chuco, characters in a radiotheatre feature. They composed and recorded their own material, skits rarelylonger than three minutes, which invariably riffed in street slang on an every-dayexample of workplace or community injustice. The format consisted of banter

between the victim, the cynic/wisecracker, and the agitator, ending with amessage of hope or a call to action.

La Hora Campesina also produced and aired what could legitimately bedescribed as documentaries,hour-long programs written, edited and produced aseither retrospectives or special event coverage. About six weeks intoLHCs lifeon KWBY, we aired Five Years of PCUN History on the occasion of PCUNsfifth anniversary, including selections from recordings of PCUN conventions,marches, rallies and other activities, knit together with a narration of scriptedcontext and commentary. The production values (i.e., soundquality) weresketchy but the content and flow were respectable, even engaging. We recordedevery installment ofLHCand put it in the PCUN archives. This continued ourcustom of documenting our work, begun in PCUNs earliest days. The recordingsproved worthwhile by providing source material forLHCprogramming

A program like the Five Yearstook the better part of two days toproduce. The radio team put several hours into preparation for the averageLHCshow. Conceiving, producing and airingLa Hora Campesinagave us valuable


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experience and a gauge for what consistent, competent radio programming mightactually require.

Just as we hoped and believed, theLHC format and its time slot combinedto make the show a hit. By 7 PM on Sunday evenings, most workers had returned

home from food shopping or visiting relatives but not yet retired for the night. Wenever systematically measured our listenership, but several indicators suggested itwas substantial. First, almost every show elicited a dozen or more calls to thestation whileLHC was airing. Second, PCUN members who came to the officecommented on it. We even received an occasional letter asking that we announcesomething (e.g., seeking to make contact with a missing relative). Third, when weasked acquaintances do you listen toLa Hora Campesina? many said that theydid. Some who initially said no would proceed to relate a story we hadbroadcast on our program, indicating that although the shows name and itsassociation with PCUN hadnt penetrated, the content proved memorable.

Cliff Zauner owned KWBY and claimed to be a friend and supporter of theLatino community. A decade afterLHCbegan, he would serve two terms in theOregon House of Representatives as a Republican representing the Woodburn areaand would seek to use his role in Spanish-language radio to somehow excuse hisflagrantly anti-immigrant politics. In the first months ofLHCbroadcast, Zauner,would ask the main Spanish-language programming engineer, Jesus Morales,how are they [PCUN] doing? Jesuswould say something to the effect oftheyre doing fine and Zauner didnt press him for details. Zauner didnt speakor understand Spanish so he had no first-hand idea what his station was airing.

We paid our $100 every week, on time. Things proceeded smoothly; no one hadcomplainedyet.

La Hora Campesinafights for its life

One ofLHCs features inspired by KUFW was denunciasworkerstatements about their (mis)treatment. In late June 1990, workers from KraemerFarms in Mt. Angel, one of the Valleys largest farms,responded to our fieldorganizing presence at Kraemers strawberry and caneberry fields. We had gonethere to hand out some of the 10,000 red cards we distributed that summer aboutminimum wage rights in harvest work paid by piece-rate. The cards encouragedworkers to record their hours worked and report wage violations to PCUN.

Three Kraemer Farms workers walked the eight miles to the PCUN officesfrom the Farms largest labor camp. They wanted to tell their stories and came tospeak on behalf of dozens of their fellow workers. Javier recorded an interview inwhich they laid out their complaints. They described pay that amounted to lessthan half the minimum wage. They paid exorbitant charges for lodging and food


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which sometimes consisting of lard tacos. Mandatory charges were deductedfor rides to nearby fields, even if workers had their own cars or preferred to walk.

PCUN organizers responding by seeking the intervention of agents from theOregon Bureau of Labor and Industries. They arrived at the camp the following

pay day, preventing Kraemer foreman and camp operator Pancho De La Cruzfrom enforcing paycheck deductions for these services. On previous paydays,those deductions had left many workers with barely pennies in net pay. Bureauagents visit coincided with the last pay period of the harvest season. Manyworkers left the area soon thereafter, depriving Pancho of any opportunity tosomehow re-institute his scheme. He later complained that he lost $9,000 thatday.

We aired the interview onLHCon July 1st. On the 12th, Zauner called usinto his office to inform us that he had received a complaint from Dan Kraemer

about our program, and that he intended to terminate broadcast ofLHCimmediately. He lambasted us for hiding from him our intentions to delve intocontroversies,though he quickly conceded that we had said wed cover laborissues. Youre going to make me looklike the bad guy, he shot back. I donthave time for controversy on my radio station. I just want entertainment. Weoffered Kraemer equal time on our program at our expense. Zauner dismissed theoffer out of hand, saying it would cost me money, by which we presumed hemeant advertisers friendly to the growers. He did admit that our program waspopular, that it boosted listenership, and would be a boon to programming on anall-Spanish station. We played our final card: What about our agreement which

doesnt expire until September and which guarantees us two weeks notice beforeKWBY cancels the program? Zauner had his mind made up and we couldntconfusehim with facts. LHC had aired on KWBY for the last time. Its over,he decreed as he got up from his desk, and so is this meeting.

LHC did not air on Sunday July 15thor on the following Sunday. KWBY

broadcast no explanation for the change. To the average listener, we simplydisappeared without a trace.

In our Movements thirteen years of existence, we had sued county sheriffs,the Immigration Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, even the OregonGovernor to challenge and eliminate injustices. Faced with Zauners brazen andbaseless repudiation of our contract, we again needed urgent and forceful judicialintervention, this time in the form of a court injunction ordering Zauner to honorour contract and air two final programs. The operative questions were whether wecould we find a lawyer on very short notice to seek an injunction and whether ajudge in conservative Marion County would issue one.


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Since the very beginning, one of our Movements most critical and richest

resource has been access to top-notch, pro-bono legal representation, mostlyprovided by National Lawyers Guild members. Founded in 1937 as the firstmulti-racial legal organization, the Guild has served as the legal arm of practicallyevery progressive movement and struggle. Guild members in Oregon, myself

included, had co-founded the Willamette Valley Immigration Project, cementingties that would endure for decades. We would call upon Guild members not onlyto bring litigation to assert our rights. Their willingness to act would repeatedlydiscourage or counter litigation against us by our adversaries.

A lawsuit against Zauner had to be filed in Marion County Circuit Courtand heard immediately to be meaningful. We turned to Terry Wright, a Guildmember and supervising attorney at the Willamette University Law School clinicalprogram in Salem. A year earlier, Terry had joined the board of the WillametteValley Law Project (PCUNs sister organization)and she was knowledgeable

about PCUNs work and activities. She agreed to appear on our behalf but didnthave time to single-handedly prepare a civil complaint, a legal memorandum and amotion for a preliminary injunction. For help, we turned to Ray Thomas, partnerin Royce, Swanson & Thomas, themost prominent and active Guild law firm inPortland. All three of the firms principals had actively supported our Movementsince its inception.

By July 16th, four days after our meeting with Zauner, Ray and I haddrafted a straightforward, three-page civil complaint, captioned PCUN v. 94Country, Inc (KWBY Radio) andTerry had reviewed, signed, and filed it at the

courthouse in Salem. Paragraph eight of the Complaint summed up our claim:Unless enjoined, the defendants action will irreparably harm plaintiffsreputation among its constituency and impede its goals as an organization, all to itsgreat and irreparable injury and damage for which it be will impossible tocompensate [the] plaintiff. The clerk set July 25

thas the date for a hearing on our

motion for preliminary injunction.

In press accounts about the dispute, Zauner raised a new contention: LHChad violated Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules by failing toreview the program with the engineer on duty and violated the FCCsFairnessDoctrineby personally attacking a persons honesty, character or integrity.They put my license in jeopardy, Zauner asserted, conveniently ignoringPCUNs offer of equal time. He also failed to notice that the FCC had junked theFairness Doctrine requirement in 1987.

Zauners violation of the contract seemed pretty clear, unless he could showthat we had failed to follow FCC rules. Our trial memo, filed the day of thehearing, cited cases such as Philip Morris v. Pittsburgh Penguins (a federal case


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about advertising contracts) and, ironically, a handful of agricultural commoditycases supporting our contention that monetary damages would be impossible tocalculate or insufficient to compensate for injury to our reputation. Even so, whenthe hearing began, we were not confident that we would prevail.

Zauner surprised us by arriving at the hearing without a lawyer, choosing todefend himself. As the hearing opened, he repeated his allegationsbut offeredno substantiationthatLHC had violated FCC rules. Presiding Judge RobertMcConville, mindful that Zauner was representing himself, let him ramble: Imsympathetic to the plight of farmworkers, Zauner insisted. Iwas afarmworkeras a German, bigotry is no stranger to me.

After Zauner finished his defense, Terry summarized the key elements ofour case. The judge prepared to deliver his ruling by observing that the cuttingedge of this case isFCC infractions. He continued, I find no evidence of any.

He granted the injunction and ordered Zauner to pay PCUN $186 in court costs.We ultimately had to garnish KWBYs checking account to collect it and didntreceive the money until nearly a year later.

Zauners stonewalling wasnt limited to reimbursing our court fees. Heannounced after the hearing that he would only allow a licensed operator toengineer the two installments ofLHCwhich the judge had ordered KWBY to air.On July 29th, the date of our next-to-last program, Zauner himself appeared at thestation about 6:45 PM. He ordered us to wait outside and took the controlshimself. He read a seven-minute editorial (in English, of course) denouncing

PCUN, blasting the judge for forcing him to relinquish control of his station, anddevolving into a incoherent patriotic rant. He then played a decades-old recordingof Kate Smith singing God Bless America.

We listened to all this in the parking lot on a portable radio. We tried tovisualize what Spanish-speaking listeners imagined was going on. We speculatedthat they would conclude that they had dialed into the wrong station. Zauner thenflung open the door, ordered his engineer to leave, allowed us to enter and left usto our own devices. Zauner had never allowed us to engineer our own program,and he doubtless assumed that we wouldnt know how. It could have been aclever tactic: technically comply with the injunction but, in practice, preventany actual broadcast. Fortunately, Ramn had paid sufficient attention to Jesustechniques during those eighteen shows. Ramn managed to keep us on the air, afact our portable radio and a few callers confirmed.

In those sixty minutes ofLHC, and the sixty minutes we broadcast thefollowing Sunday, we told the story of our two week absence, of Dan Kraemerscomplaint against us, of Zauners alliances and interests, and, naturally, the story


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of the PCUN v. 94 Country, Inc. We even explained Zauners July 29

thdiatribe

and Kate Smiths iconic anthem. On August 5th

, we signed off KWBY prouder forthe struggle we had waged. We urged our listening audience to tune in atLHCsnew frequency, day and time because

La Hora Campesina finds new life at KBOO

As soon as Zauner showed us the door on July 12th, we knew that our daysat KWBY were numbered. We contacted the KBOO programming director andexplained the situation. Coincidentally, KBOO had an opening on Tuesday in theweekday, Spanish-language strip, 5:00 to 6:00 PM. That slot was certainly notas desirable as Sunday evening, but we thought it could work for theLHC teamand for our audience. Cognizant of our plight, the KBOO programmingcommittee expedited approval, and we aired our first installment ofLHC onKBOO just two days after the final one at KWBY.

We immediately launched a promotional campaign in the Woodburncommunity to spread the word about our change of radio venue. We assumed thaton KBOO, wed never hold a Woodburn-area audience equal to the one we had atKWBY and right we were. It took a determined effort to remember to change thedial every Tuesday at 5 PM and only motivated and disciplined listenersconsistently did so. Listeners who tuned in early encountered news in English;soul music programming started after 6:00.

We felt very grateful that KBOO took us in and we made extra efforts to

mobilize our supporters, members and listeners to contribute to KBOOs pledgedrives. Over the next four years, we produced and aired nearly 200 editions ofLHC on KBOO, and garnered a loyal following, but mostly in the Portland metroarea. Our listenership in the Valley, south of Portland, remained limited,especially after stations in the Valley expanded broadcasting in Spanish to twenty-four hours a day.

Despite these limitations, PCUNs radio team worked diligently onLaHora Campesina. On November 11, 1990, the core team members, joined byseveral other PCUN leaders, sketched out our vision of radio life free fromcensorship and the fear of it. The meeting re-affirmedLHCs mission:educating-informing, raising consciousness, organizing. The group identifiedshort-comings in content, such as passively relying on information or topics thathappened to be handy, and concentrating onpeoples complaints at the expense ofanalyzing them and suggesting solutions. We set out guidelines for recruiting newteam members, for technical training, and we developed a docket of stories topursue proactively.


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Though we recognized a need to expand the range of topics beyond labor

issues, we articulated the following criteria that would keep us close to our laborhome: (1) stories that affect a large number of people, directly or by example;(2) actions of resistance that redress or combat abuse; (3) incidents of abuse bygrowers or other employers; and (4) arrests or encounters with the INS. We

utilized our own research from organizing campaigns to prepare more in-depthprofiles of key growers. We recorded round-table discussions on bribery asendemic to daily life in Mexico. We summarized the history of Mexicanmigration to Oregon. We explored womens leadership rolesand the barrierswomen facein the farmworker community. We broke at least two significantnews stories, both later reported in print media: indictment of an East-MultnomahCounty grower for issuing thousands of false work-verification letters tolegalization applicants, despite having employed only a couple of hundredworkers, and a hate-crime attack on a Latina by a deranged neighbor obsessedwith the Gulf War (he thought she was an Arab).

As one might expect, producingLHCbecame routine over the course oftwo hundred programs. Someone from Woodburn (usually Ramon or I) wouldtake off for Portland with Javier at 4 PM, pick up Rodolfo at his factory job inTualatin and, rush-hour traffic permitting, arrive at the KBOO studios onPortlands near east side with five to eight minutes to spare. Wed boot up thecart (an eight-track tape style cartridge) for the opening theme song, set thecassette tape deck to record the entire show, cue up a couple of singles on theturntables, adjust the earphones and sound levels, and hit play on the cart-deckwhen the news reader gave us the sign. Any core team member could engineer

and host the show solo. Two people made banter possible, allowed us to timelyanswer the dozen calls with song requests and dedicationswhich we averagedeach week. Though no more than four people ever occupied the host role,programs regularly featured a half dozen other voices, recorded in theLHCstudio atPCUN headquarters.

The KBOO period inLHCs life sharpened our skills, replacedmicrophone-phobia with self-confidence. It gave us a sense of proportion, such asthe ratio of production time to airtime. It brought us closer to living our radiodream, not just fantasize it. We proved that we could routinely produceentertaining and informative radio.

The end ofLa Hora Campesina and the return to the commercial media jungle

LHCsenduring, and, we concluded, insurmountable obstacle was audiencescope. We had a built a loyal following at KBOO, but not in the WillametteValley, PCUNs prime territory. In the parlance of real estate, the problem waslocation. LHCwas a Spanish-language island in KBOOs sea of programming


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in English. No feasible amount of hype would attract and bond Valley listeners,except for a die-hard core.

We arrived at this conclusion neither suddenly nor shortly before endingLaHora Campesinastenure on KBOO in June 1994. For a period in Spring 1992,

we explored new, more conducive waters forLHC. KWIP, reaching fivecounties in the heart of the Valley, was the obvious choice. Since KWIP saw itselfas the commercial rival to KWBY, we theorized that our experience at KWBYmight not automatically disqualify us from securing a show on KWIP. Whatsmore, we had heard that KWIP might still be on the market, re-energizing ourvision of owning our own station.

Attempting to apply lessons learned in our KWBY experience, werequested a meeting with the KWIPs general manager and the director ofSpanish-language programming. At the meeting, we described our program

format and proactively suggested steps for dealing with complaints orcontroversies. We presented an eleven-point outline for an agreement which wethought fair to the station and protective of our free expression prerogatives.Specifically, we proposed purchasing a two-hour segment, Saturday eveningsfrom 6:00 to 8:00 PM for $250 a week. The general manager made nocommitments but did seem interested and said hed get back to us after consultingwith the owner. As we left the meeting, he informed us that the station hadrecently been sold for $300,000. The memory of sticker shock came back in arush.

After a few weeks had passed with no response, we took the liberty ofdrafting an agreement which set forth our proposed points and incorporated termswhich the general manager had mentioned during our meeting. We did our best todetail rights, responsibilities and remedies. We proposed specified a term of oneyear with cancellation allowed only if we violated the agreement. The draft struckus as balanced and workable. When KWIP simply never responded, that told usjust about everything we needed to know about our prospects for leasingcommercial broadcast time for our kind of programming.

By 1994, the increasing demands of work on PCUNs two principal andinterrelated fronts raised new questions about the effort invested inLa HoraCampesina. More than ever, we felt the need to focus all possible resources onorganizing workers especially at Kraemer Farms and other farms associated withNORPAC Foods, and on promoting the national consumer boycott launchedagainst NORPAC Foods in September 1992. By 1994, the Boycott had gainedtraction among Portland-area consumers, selected natural food stores around thecountry, and religious organizations. LHC,we reluctantly decided, simply didntcontribute meaningfully to either campaign. Workers on NORPAC farms (and in


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the Valley generally) werent tuning in and our Latino audience in the Portlandarea was not a demographic strategic to advancing the Boycott. We folded theLHC tent and stored it, with no idea about when or where we could expect topitch it again.

The demise ofLHC did not, however, end our presence on Spanish-language radio altogether. If phase one (pre-1990) of our radio life consisted ofdonated time, if phase two (LHC on KWBY) was paid programming (a form ofinfo-mercial?), and if phase three (KBOO) was the info-noncommercial, phasefourtook us to the most common of radio and media conventions: thepaidcommercial message. We simply began paying for thirty-second and one-minutespots just like car dealers, supermarkets, restaurantsbusinesses. Until then,we had acted as if our Movement operated in a sort of parallel universe where thecustom ofpayingfor ads simply didnt apply to us.

The Tenth Anniversary Organizing Campaign, designed and adopted in Fall1994 and executed in Spring 1995, took our field organizing to an entirely newlevel. The Campaignsstraightforward goalto win a substantial crop-wide wageincrease in the 1995 strawberry harvestrequired us to plan, recruit, fundraise,procure, deploy, organize, propagandize, agitate and mobilize like never before.Success without mass media messages that reached the farmworker communityseemed far-fetched. The Campaigns by any (nonviolent) means necessaryorientation crumbled our remaining inhibitions about media buys.

Once we made that mental and emotional breakthrough, the media logistics

and strategies seemed uncomplicated. To distinguish ourselves from thecommercial voice and style of other ads, we wrote our own content and recordedit in our own voices, sometimes with our audio equipment, sometimes in thecommercial stations studios. We approached KWBY and KWIP and both dealtwith us as if we had no history. It was strictly business. They offered us thestandard volume discounts, such as buy eight spots, get four bonusspots. Wesettled on certain scheduling arrangements that would become customary, e.g.,four to six ads per day, concentrated in morning and evening drive time and at thelunch hour.

Just before and during the strawberry harvest in June 1995, we producedand aired one-minute spots with a 20-second message in Spanish, followed by atranslated into two indigneous languages, Mixteco and Triqui. To our knowledge,these were the first commercial spots (and possibly the first broadcasts) in thoselanguages that ever aired in our area. Neither station seemed concerned aboutcontent they didnt understand. The spots definitely had the intended effect,catching the ear of the indigenous workers who comprised the bulk of the harvestworkforce.


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Paid ads on KWBY and KWIP became a staple of our mass mobilizationcommunications plan. We later expanded them to KXOR,La X, in Eugene andKGDD, La Gran D,in Portland. In August 2000, we ventured into buying adson Spanish-language cable television channels to promote a march and

demonstration at the State Capitol in Salem supporting legal status forundocumented workers. The sight of a Movement leader on TVwith protestfootage as backgroundexhorting viewers to turn out, commanded wide notice,partly for its novelty. On August 22nd, some 3,000 people showed up to march.At the time, it was the largest gathering of Latinos for any political event inOregon history.

In subsequent years, we also bought radio spots to disseminate keymessages unrelated to a specific organizing campaign or event, such as increasesin the state minimum wage rates. We had resigned ourselves to the reality that

commercial stations free public service announcements meant, inpractice, one ortwo a month. We no longer flinched at the irony that we were, in effect,payingforPSAs. It had become a cost of operations, even if a spendy one at times.Between PCUN and our sister organization, CAUSA (Oregons immigrants rightscoalition), we shelled out as much as $10,000 in a year. Every now and then, aninner voice would ask: what if we could devote these resources to a station ofour own?


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Part III: A crack in the radio ice-shelf: low-power noncommercial radio

In 2000, after years in which we were frozen out of radio ownership, a thawsuddenly began. In January 2000, over the strenuous objections of the commercialbroadcaster associations, the FCC adopted an initiative offering low-power radio

license opportunities to non-profit organizations. Organizations like PCUN couldapply at no charge for a construction permit to establish such an FM radio stationoperating at up to one hundred watts of power.

While we jumped at the chance to apply, we curbed our enthusiasm,preparing ourselves for what we presumed would be an all-too-likelydisappointment. Over the five years that our application pended, including severalhurry up and wait moments, the prospect of finally reaching our goal seemedillusory. It didnt help that commercial broadcasters waged concerted campaignsto kill or at least constrict the low-power FM program.

The FCC had barely begun implementation when Congress intervened atthe mega-media interests behest, ultimately passing the Radio BroadcastingPreservation Act in late 2000. While community media advocates successfullydefended the existence of the low-power FM (LPFM) program, the legislationeffectively eliminated 75% of the promised stations, including most opportunitiesfor LPFMs in urban markets. PCUN played little more than a cameo role in thecampaign to preserve LPFM. In October, 2000, we participated in a newsconference in Portland, organized by leaders of the United Church of Christ(UCC), a progressive force in community media politics nationally. As we and

they saw it, if any one could serve as an archetypal candidate for LPFM, it wasPCUN.

Though media monopolists were emboldened by installation of the BushAdministration, the LPFM program escaped their strangling grasp. The licenseapplication process gradually unfolded across six geographic regions. For oneregion at a time, the FCC would announce an on-line application window openfor only a few days. The window for the region including Oregon opened June 11,2001 and closed June 15th. We applied on the first day.

Once we found our bearings in a new world of jargon, we understood that aqualifying organization needed to show evidence of roots in the local communityand proof of our non-profit status. We needed to affirm our capacity to constructand operate an LPFM and to submit an educational statement of purpose.Fortunately, we counted on the expertise and pro-bono services of several keyadvisers to help us find our way through the maze: veteran community andcommercial radio engineer Michael Brown of Portland, Andrea Cano, Director ofthe United Church of Christs Microradio Implementation Project, and the


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Prometheus Radio Project based in Philadelphia. We eventually became at leastminimally conversant with terms like minor and major changes, and thirdadjacent frequencyonly the tip of the radio lingo iceberg, we later came torealize.

PCUNs educational statement summarized our mission and didnt mincewords about our communication goals:

Provision and dissemination of accurate and useful information is a keypart of achieving our mission because it equips farmworkers and theirfamilies to make sound judgments, participate in a timely and appropriatefashion and defend themselves against exploitative practices of those whorely on the use of misinformation.

PCUNs plan signaled an emphasis on labor themes and specifically mentioneddeveloping programming in indigenous languages (e.g., Copala, Mixteco,Zapoteco, Purepecha) spoken by large numbers of immigrants from Mexicoin the

listening area.

Filing the application came at a time of unusually intense organizationalactivity for PCUN. Consider this combination:

The struggle for immigration reformand amnesty as we called it thenhad gained real momentum in 2000. Early in 2001, President Bushandhis pre-9/11 selfand newly-elected Mexican President Vicente Foxboth grabbed onto the issue to define their respective shaky presidencies.In October, 2000, the UFW, PCUN, and the Farm Labor OrganizingCommittee had reached an historic agreement with the agribusiness lobby

on a legislative proposal called AgJOBS. It would grant legal status toan estimated 1.5 million farmworkers and family members. AgJOBS camevery close to enactment in the Clinton Administrations final days. Alegalization benefiting tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants inOregon could be close at hand, we believed.

Our nine-year long consumer boycott of NORPAC Foods had also foundtraction as students on dozens of campuses successfully pressureduniversity administrations to pressure the four major campus food servicecompanies to cut ties with NORPAC. Though we couldnt know it in June2001, NORPAC would abandon its stonewalling and come to the

bargaining table with PCUN just seven months later. Those negotiationsdramatically increased the prospects for achieving collective bargaining ona major scale in Oregon agriculture, thrusting our leadership into new anddemanding roles.

After years of simmering tensions, workers at United Foods PictSweetMushroom plant in Salem suddenly reached the point of basta ya! (enoughalready!) in March 2001. The spark setting off a full-scale worker rebellionagainst a staggering range of workplace abuses came when the company


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abruptly and arrogantly fired two respected rank-and-file leaders. Thecrews of pickers they led immediately walked out, gathered at the plantsfront gate, and called PCUN organizers. In June 2001, the 119-store FredMeyer food store chain joined the PCUN/UFW boycott against PictSweet.The UFWs battle with United Foods over unionization at their Ventura,

California PictSweet plant had gone on for eighteen years. We feltoptimistic that the loss of 30% of PictSweet sales would bring UnitedFoods to recognize the union and bargain a contract covering the 350workers at the Salem plant.

The possibility of establishing a radio station in the midst of these potentiallymomentous developments seemed like both a blessing and a curse. On thepositive side, we had more to broadcast aboutand more need to broadcast itthan ever. The topic of legalization would command a huge and faithful audience.There remained, however, a nagging question: could we sustainably take onanothermajor initiative, especially one that would catalyze all the others, and

thereby create even more work for our Movement? At the time, we predicted tokey allies that a station of our own would double our mobilizing effectiveness withina few months of starting broadcast and would quadruple that capacity in two years.

The FCCs glacial processingpace put off the day of reckoning about thelimits of our capacity. We would wait four years before the FCC took decisiveaction on our application.

authorized to construct the radio transmitting apparatus: the countdown begins

In late May, 2005, a letter dated May 17

th

arrived from the FCC. Itincluded the phrase quoted above, embedded in two pages of radio engineeringlingo. Perhaps sensing that many LPFM applicants might not fully grasp all thecritical implications and conditions, the FCC kindly enclosed a four page narrativeexplanation. THE EXPIRATION DATE IS FINAL! screamed the headline onthe first page. We had exactly eighteen months to build the station and startbroadcasting the required minimum of twelve hours daily, including eight hours oflocally-produced programming daily at least six days each week.

There we found ourselves, at the entrance to radioland, its proverbial gatesuddenly flung open. If we ventured forth, who else like us would we bejoining? In Oregon, 93 organizations had applied for an LPFM frequency; theFCC issued forty construction permits. Of those, thirty-four were on the air as ofNovember 2007; twenty-one have Christian-oriented programming. One applicantin Gold Beach on Oregons southern coastcalled itself Totally Jesus Network.The Islamic center near Ashland applied but apparently didnt followthrough.Perhaps the most interesting mix of applicants surfaced in Bend: sevenorganizations (greens, Womens Civic Improvement League, Arts Central,Human


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Dignity Coalition), ultimately collaborated to establish KPOV. Nationally, thewebsite LPFMDatabase.com reported that the FCC had granted 1,304 low powerpermits of which 825 were now on the air in November 2007. PCUN and theCoalition of Immokalee Workers in South Florida are the only labor unionsoperating LPFMs.

Maybe because it seemed simplest and made a station seem more real, wechose to select our call sign (or call letters) as the first of the phalanx ofchallenges we would have to tackle. The FCC web-based data base does not listthe unclaimed combinations available. Rather, it contains every call sign alreadytaken, leaving the new licensee to conjure a three or four letter sequence startingwith K (or W if east of the Mississippi River) and submit it to determine if itsalready assigned. Since call signs can serve as or can reinforce a brand, theprocess calls for some imagination and some patience with the trial and errormechanics.

Luckily, KPCN, the combination closest to PCUN, came up asavailable. To distinguish it as an LPFM, the FCC required adding the letters LP.Before submitting KPCN-LPas our choice, we checked for other combinationsthat we regarded as contenders: KPCS or KPCZ (connoting CAPACES, thename we sometimes use for our network of nine Movement organizations), KMPO(we would pronounce it campo), even KBRN (cabrn,or jerk, an optiontested only in jest). All were taken. I even read through the Spanish dictionarylistings starting with Ca (the pronunciation of the letter K in Spanish), butfound nothing suitable.

On June 13th, the FCC officially approved our request and we had anidentity: KPCN-LP.

We are really moving on this, (arent we?)

Late Spring 2005 found us enmeshed in a difficult state legislative sessionfighting off anti-immigrant and anti-farmworker bills. Thats as good anexplanation as any for why we didnt spring into action right after reading theFCCs May 17thletter. And even though we thought we had studiously reviewedthe how-to literature for starting an LPFM, our earliest must do lists wereanemic to the point of pathetic. At least they did identify the highest prioritymatters: antenna location, studio location, fundraising, and radios potential forhaving an escalator effect on the rest of our work.

The FCCs green lightwas calling the question we had asked ourselves in2001: should we move our portion of heaven and earth to acquire the capacity tobroadcast? If we attracted a receptive audience and they responded to our


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broadcast calls to action, would it unleash a tide which could swamp ourorganizational vessels, made creakier by the overexertion of becoming broadcast-ready?

By 2005, the organizing breakthroughs that seemed imminent in 2001

had evaporated or stalled. PictSweet closed the plant rather than unionize.Negotiations with NORPAC morphed into a broader and indefinitely deadlockedfight on the terms for a state collective bargaining law in agriculture. Immigrationreform proposals, including AgJOBS, faced stiffening political head winds.

But the question remained: how confident did we feel that we could handlesuccesslike our own radio station? To paraphrase the Chinese proverb, had webeen sufficiently careful about what we wished for? During the years waiting forFCC approval, I would pose these questions occasionally, especially when I heardthose around me talk about when, and ignore if. Reactions varied from oh,

that to concerned reflection, and a few quizzical looks (as if to say is that reallya serious question?). Was this a case of my (over)thinking ahead and worst-case-scenario-ing, or was there real and substantial danger of organizationaloverreaching?

Somewhat uncharacteristically, we didnttake the question directly to thePCUN board. Instead, we embarked on a broader assessment of ourMovementscapacity and motivation, not just PCUNs. The CAPACES mass gatheringprocessperiodically bringing together a substantial portion of the nine sisterorganizations staffs to discuss a common challengeoffered the most fitting and

efficient opportunity.

Even as we lined up the CAPACES discussion, we proceeded to identifythe obstacle most likely to prove insurmountable. It wasnt money or studiobuilding, but the transmitting antenna location. However much this approachappeared prudent, it alsobespoke avoidance. We probed for something thatcould stop the project in its tracks and thereby render moot the larger strategicquestion.

The antenna plan we had devised in 2001 contemplated anchoring steelpipe tower sections to the PCUN headquarters buildingssouth wall and extendingthe sections about about thirty feet above the roof line, as high as we could supportthem without installing guy wires. Our engineering friends estimated that thisdesign would place the antenna sixty feet above ground. At that elevation, theradio signal might reach only a few miles. We had consulted with the Citybuilding department and either didnt hear a no or didnt exactly pin down thedetails. Sounded doable, or something to that effect, sufficedat the time.


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By August 8, 2005, doable had retreated to somewhere on the outskirts of

no. The City Planner informed us that only land zoned industrial could hostcommunications towers. Our property, zoned commercial, could accommodatesome way-too-short CB-radio style antenna. We knew we needed at least twentyfeet of clearance above the roof line to avoid radiation issues and, without

substantially more height, our coverage might not even include all of Woodburnsfive square miles. Our two choices boiled down to seeking a zoning variance,which the Planner advised against, or scouting another location.

Undoubtedly, over the years, we had cast our gaze upward as we stood inour headquarters building parking lot and noticed the two City water towers fivehundred feet to the west. In Woodburn, as in countless towns and small citieslocated on flat terrain, water towers are the tallest structures in sight. At somepoint, it must have occurred to us that installing our antenna on one of the towerswould greatly enhance our broadcast territory. The fact that I cant rememberit

suggests that the idea quickly landed in the mental folder labeled fantasies.Suddenly, however, we faced a pressing need to retrieve and re-categorize it.

Encouragingly, both towers already hosted antennas. The closer towerthe older onelooked perfectly suited to our needs: cylindrical with a steel ladderand safety housing ideal for attaching a vertical mast like the one already there. Itsecured the Woodburn Police Departments radio antenna.

The other water tower thirty yards away exuded progress: a huge silver-colored globe-like tank with a sturdy equatorial cat-walk. The tank rested on

seven legs each six feet in diameter. A 15-inch-wide steel ladder hugged one legup to the cat-walk and continued up the tanks skin to its north pole, 135 feetabove ground level. Every eight yards along the cat-walk railing, a Sprint cellphone relay or Union Pacific Railroad antenna gave the tank a wide, semi-toothysmile. A small colony of out-buildings housing all manner of transformers andinstruments had sprouted in the grassy area under the tanks belly.

About ten minutes into my September 8thmeeting with Woodburn CityManager John Brown and City Engineer Randy Rohman, I learned that the oldtower no longer stored water and awaited imminent demolition. So much for theeasyoption.

We had a contentious relationship with the City Establishment during ourMovements first two decades. Over the past ten years, our relationship hadtransformed completely. As I sat across from John at his City Hall officeconference table on September 8th, I mentally re-playedjust how far wed come.John enthusiastically embraced the notion of community radio in Woodburn. Hedescribed how community radio complemented his strategy of increased


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The meeting also reflected a strong and shared sense of confidence that a

substantial segment of the community found existing Spanish-language radiotiresome and would embrace programming in voices like theirs, honestly speakingto issues of real concern. Addressing the prospect that a robust audience couldexponentially increase community demands on us, several participants pointed out

that a more active community would invigorateour organizations to meet thechallenges.

For me, the September 23rdmeeting extinguished my lingering doubts. Thenimothe motivationexpressed dovetailed with the spirit evoked ten daysearlier at the PCUN 20thanniversary celebrations in Portland and Eugene. A radiostation of our own stood near the top of the vision for the next twenty yearsbrainstorm list we shared there with supporters. It all reminded me that PCUN hasalways found a way to build critical capacity in good times and in difficult ones.As I re-oriented myself to adelantemode, another thought surfaced: sometime

next year, we might regret that this meeting happened in September and not inJune. Unquestionably, we had lost some valuable lead time.

In November, 2005, the PCUN board weighed the risks and benefits ofproceeding. We decided to move forward and we designated the radio station asour highest strategic priority for 2006.


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Part IV: 2006: A year of building radio unconventionally

Though we worked pretty steadily on the many planning fronts, we arrivedat the half way point in our eighteen month countdown from permit totransmit withno firm funding commitments and with longer and more specific

to-do lists. We had, however, advanced in two pivotal respects. We decidedwhere to house the station and we accepted an offer from the Prometheus RadioProject to site their next community radio conference and radio barnraising atPCUN in August.

The studio location decision boiled down to a process of elimination. Theheadquarters buildings ground floor was laid out all wrong and the second floorwasnt accessible. The acoustics were problematic, and the prospect of displacingthe Centro de Servicios and other offices compounded it all. The old volunteerhouse next door called for demolition, not renovation. Wed long envisioneda

new building on that site. Nine months wasnt near enough lead time to plan andconduct the capital campaign, in addition to radio start up fundraising, design thenew structure, andbuild it.

That left the new volunteer house behind the headquarters. We hadacquired that house just two years earlier when its long-time, elderly occupantabruptly re-located to an assisted living facility. Though the house hardly seemedideally suited to hosting a radio stationas circumstance would remind uscountless times in the months that followedthe conversion appearedfeasibleand affordable.

Prometheus Radio Project: light our fire

The importance of the Prometheus offerand of their role overall in thebirth of KPCN-LPsimply cannot be overstated. Since its founding in 1998,Philadelphia-based Prometheus Radio Project (PRP) had become theleadingnational advocate the midwife and resource central for LPFMs. Prometheusverynameinvoking the Greek god banished for giving fire to humankindconjuredtheir mission: putting tools for power in the peoples hands. Prometheus played apivotal role in expanding community radio, an increasingly prominent front in thenational and local struggle for more democratic media.

By 2006, the radio barnraising had arguably become PRPs signatureactivity. It combined popular education on media democracy with all manner ofpractical, hands-on training, plus collective work, producing a functioning station.Starting in 2002, PRP had organized two or three radio barnraisings annually. Bythe time they arrived in Woodburn, theyd constructed stations in Maryland,California, Louisiana, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Washington, Tennessee,


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and Florida, plus Tanzania, Nepal, Colombia, and Venezuela. Though everygathering surely was unique, the basic elements included fundraising, weeks ormonths of logistics preparation, readying radio materials and audio equipment, andmobilizing and convening a couple of hundred volunteers at the barnraising site.Over one long weekend, PRP, the host organization and these volunteers

organized and conducted workshops and assembled, installed, connected, andtested the antenna, transmitter, mics, mixers, and components, all to have a stationbroadcast-ready by Sunday evening.

PRP founders and activists included former radio pirates, undergroundbroadcasters who had constructed and operated micro-radio stations without FCCpermission. The advent of LPFM gave them a compelling reason to surface.Prometheus co-founder Pete TridishPetri for shortnot only had traveled thisoutlaw-to-out-for-allroute , his very identity embodied it. He had adoptedPete Tridish as his radio nom de guerreand simply stayed with it. The name

played on petri dish, the glass vessel biologists use to grow exotic culturesstarting with bacteria. Rumor had it that his real name was DylanWrynn.

Petri had operated his underground radio station, Radio Mutiny, in thebackroom of a ramshackle, four-story brick house, affectionately called Knot-Squat, located on Philadelphias west side. Activists and social outcastsestablished a squat there around 1990, one of many abandoned house take-oversin the area. The squatters eventually gained title from the City by paying $2,100in back taxes at a Sheriffs auction. Radio Mutiny attracted an eclectic and vibrantline up of programmers, including one who occasionally broadcast in the nude,

hoping to make more sensational the FCC raid everyone assumed wouldeventually shut down the station. Though the raid finally occurred two years intoRadio Mutinysbrief life, the Feds didnt take her away naked in handcuffsbecause her show happened not to be airing at that moment.

Petris long black beard and penchant for outlandish tactics intensified hisimage as a rebel. Amazingly, he could protest outside FCC offices in an FCCcheerleader uniform, complete with pleated skirt, and still command personalmeetings with the Republican FCC Chairman, Kevin Martin, for seriousandeven fruitfulnegotiations on impending radio rulemaking affecting potentiallydozens of stations and hundreds of frequencies. This rare combination served as atribute to Petrisenergy, determination and creativity. Prometheus had achievedplayer status in the communication (de-)regulation wars while remainingdefiantly grassroots and iconoclastic.

Petri and other former underground broadcasters brought their ingenuityand counter-culture ethos to the unconventional, even preposterous endeavor ofputting together an entire station over a weekend on a shoe-string budget. In


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PRPs approach, it takes a community to raise a radio station, and new mediaactivists can and should start at the top, as owners.

When Petri contacted us in late January to convey PRPs offer, we had onlythe vaguest notion about the radio barnraising phenomenon. It sounded like a

good fit with our hustle-and-build-it-yourself style. Our friends at the Coalitionfor Immokalee Workers, a farmworker organization in southern Florida, spokehighly of PRP and the barnraising they jointly organized in 2003 . Then there wasthe fact that no one else had offered to co-build KPCN-LP and that we had noblueprint, master plan, or expertise for doing it ourselves. At the January 31stCAPACES mass gathering, we surveyed opinion and then enthusiasticallyaccepted. Settling on the radio barnraising datesAugust 18

thto 20

thboosted

our confidence that wed actually get to the LPFM promised land.

A few weeks later, PRP sent us copies of their sixty-page manual

methodically laying out every aspect of organizing a radio barnraising. They alsobegan planning a PRP/PCUN promotional tour of a dozen Northern California,Western Oregon and Western Washington communities in late April and earlyMay to connect with local community radio activists.

Six months to raise a six-figure sum

PRP pledged toand didraise the funding for the barnraising gathering,much of it ultimately through voluntary registration fees from attendees. As lateas April, I had estimated needing $90,000 in total start up cash (through 12/31/06),

including $25,000 for equipment and installation, $5,000 for remodeling the houseand $38,000 for the equivalent of 1.5 full-time staff (three full-time staff positionswith staggered start dates during calendar year 2006). I expected that construction,legal, engineering and organizational services worth tens of thousands of dollarswould be donated.

When the financial smoke had cleared at yearsend, equipment and staffhad come in higher, but not hugely, thanks in no small measure to PRPsexpertise. The remodel costs, however, totaled nearly five timeswhat I hadinitially guessed. I had based my estimate on a suspect combination of previousproject costs and the notion that ourremodel costing should be different thananyone elses. The final tally for KPCN-LP start-up and 2006 operations: justunder $117,000, 30% more than I originally projected.

We knew that we couldnt look to the PCUN membership and communitybase to supply that level of funding, especially in a matter of months. In the past,we had commonly sought start-up funding from sources outside the community:progressive foundations, small and major individual donors, and community


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By December 2006, we had raised $180,000 from eight foundations, plusanother $36,000 from eleven individuals and fifteen organizations who eachcontributed at least $250. This remarkable and generous backing fully funded thestart-up and put up $85,000 towards 2007 operations, sustaining KPCN-LPs

momentum.

Meanwhile, millions pour into the streets

Just as we were preparing to build the capacity to mobilize on a muchbigger scale, a series of massive protests erupted nationwide. Like any wild fire,this fire required the right sequence and proportion of fuel, spark, oxygen andaccelerant. A political fire marshal report on theseblazescauses could haveread as follows:

The fuel: increasingly shrill anti-immigrant rhetoric and slandergenerated an intensifying heat wave of immigrant and Latinocommunity anger,parching the communityspatience and evaporatedits fear;

The spark: The SensenbrennerBill (HR 4437) passed by the U.S.House of Representatives in mid-December 2005, proposing tocriminalize virtually anyone who associated with an undocumentedworker;

The oxygen: the Catholic Churchs forceful calls in immigrant-dominated parishes across the country to take public action against HR

4437 as an affront to the community and to church doctrine; The accelerant: Spanish-language radio DJs in key cities like Chicago

and Los Angeles incessantly exhorting and commenting on mass action,augmented by national TV coverage (especially Spanish-languagestations) of the first mega-marches in Chicago and Los Angeles.

The firezone included Oregon, and the role of radio in the WillametteValley mirrored the national pattern. For a six-week period from late March toearly May, 2006, mainstream commercial stations broadcasting in Spanishmorphed their usual content (mostly shallow banter, pop music and commercials)into nonstop talk radio on immigration. Though this change was initiallyspontaneous, station owners surely decided to ride the popular wave, self-interestever central to their calculations. In late March, Ramn, easily Oregons mostvisible Latino leader on immigration issues, became an almost daily fixture on theKWIP morning drive time or mid-morning show, hosted byDon Angel, theformerly irreverent cynic turned political crusader.


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City, obtain an insurance rider, and seek FCC approval of the minor change oflocation and height specifications.

Finalizing the lease required some back and forth on our rights and theCitys prerogatives. What recourse should the City have if a KPCN-LP broadcast

criticized the City government? On the one hand, we knew that reckless orunfounded accusations could air despite our best efforts to broadcast responsibly.On the other hand, we hardly intended to countenance censorship (including self-censorship). In the end, the agreement gave the City the right to terminate uponfour months advance notice and after attempting dispute resolution. Theagreements initialfive-year initial term automatically renewed for threeadditional five year period if neither party took action to cancel it. We agreed topay $100 per month plus the Citys actual electric service costs for powering thetransmitter, about another $30 per month. We also guaranteed the City a regularpublic information program should they choose to produce one and we agreed to

provide urgent access to broadcast emergency information.

By late June, all the pieces had moved into place. At the Woodburn CityCouncil meeting on June 26

th, City Manager John Brown presented a brief

summary of the agreement. Mayor Kathy Figley praised the arrangement and theproject, characterizing it as a great opportunity for the City. A couple of the sixCity Councilors nodded as she spoke. A few moments before she instructed theclerk to call the roll, one councilor visibly drew a breath, furrowed his brow, andleaned forward to say something. Id seen that look on his face before and Istarted mentally composing the rebuttal I might have to deliver to counter a one or

more of the following: tired, lame, crotchety, whining, resentful, arrogant, orchauvinistic snipes at immigrants and the special treatment they supposedlyreceive. Thankfully, he stopped himself and said nothing. The clerk proceeded,and the motion to approve the agreement passed unanimously.

We scratched that itema big oneoff the list and mentally reassuredourselves: still on schedule.

The PCUN School of Remodeling

We approached creating a studio as one more thing wed never done,as onemore project for which we had ridiculously limited resources, at least byconventional standards and one more instance of precariously short lead time. Weknew we would need to marshal imagination, scrounge good technical resourcesand research, and mobilize both a modest core and a broader periphery ofvolunteers. Why, we told ourselves, should this project proceed any differentlythan the half dozen major (and countless minor) remodels wed carried out overnearly two decades? As a grassroots organizations based in a low-income


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community, our habit of relying on donated labor, often in work parties orbrigadas,seemed as unremarkable as the many resulting accomplishments seemedextraordinary. This time, however, we had set a whole new level of challenge forourselves.

My notion of brigadaswas shaped by my participation a quarter-centuryearlier with the Venceremos Brigade in Cuba, ironically helping to build a radiocommunications school. In 1973, I had worked construction briefly in Bostonand, over the years and I had occasionally helped friends with construction orremodel projects. My skill and self-confidence, however, remained decidedly so-so.

In 1988, I assumed the role of PCUN general contractorplanning,obtaining materials, comparing prices and monitoring costs, lining up help,directing traffic, problem solving and all purpose decision-making on facilities

upgrade. That year, PCUN had moved into our current headquarters, a formerchurch building, and embarked on restoring the meeting-hall. Supporters in thePortland area answered our call, bringing dozens of volunteers includingexperienced and highly skilled construction professionals. Over the years, a fewof thembecame regularshelping with other projectsincluding the radioremodel.

My role as general contractor grew when we pushed to wrap up work onthe hall in early 1994, part of the run up to its dedication in April of that year. Idoubled as a project laborer weekends and some evenings. Reprising these roles

in the radio remodelseemedroutine to me and it wasin every sense except thepace, scope and complexity.

Though we decided in January to situate the studios in the former volunteerhouse, we had first to finish converting the houses back storeroom into aworkshop or taller dubbed Taller Lzaro Crdenas. General Crdenas re-distributed land to millions of peasants and nationalizated the oilfields in Mexicoduring his populist presidency in the 1930s. He remains a national hero,especially in his home state of Michoacan. One might suppose that some of thehundreds of PCUN members from Michoacan instigated this honor by, say,proposing a resolution at PCUNs annual convention (the process employed toname the PCUN hall). In fact, Taller Lzaro Crdenasthe project and thenamewas the brainchild of Billy Hobbs, a tall, lanky, sixty-somethinggringocarpenter from the nearby town of Molalla.

One day, about halfway through the workshop project, Billy hand-lettered asmall board, nailed it above the unfinished doorway and declared the taller named.The rest of us simply accepted it without question or much commenta testament


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A remodel too implausible even for This Old House

Even the producers of that venerable public television show would have tosee it to believe it. Picture this, we could imagine telling them. Shoe-horn twocontiguous studios into the living/dining room area of a 93-year-old, 1,200-square

foot former farmhouse. Construct them with extra sound proofing, including aseparate ventilation system. Install new exterior doors, an accessible bathroomand 48-foot-long wheelchair ramp and deck. That only begins to describe whatwe had set ourselves to do.

The complexity of the remodel derived from what often proved to bemutually-complicating imperatives. We had to comply with the City buildingcode for commercial structures, including accessibility (a goal we embraced). Wealso had to have the best possible sound-proofing within the studio spaces.

Like any project requiring a building permit, we had to produce and submitdetailed drawings. Once we told Billy that the radio station would have to occupythe volunteer house, he studied the Citysaccessibility code. He immersedhimself in research on acoustics, soliciting suggestions and materials from AndyGunn, Prometheus soundmaestro, from his network of assorted vendors inPortland, and from an acoustic products company he found called Auralex. Heand Aaron produced a precise, presentableeven elegantschematic illustratingthe floor plan, wall cross-section and site plan. We filed them, paid our permit feeand waited for official review, leery about what type of treatment wed get.Would it be nitpicking? gotcha? run around (yes, but)?

Given those trepidations, the City building inspector, Steve Krieg,pleasantly surprised us by responding promptly and cooperatively. We met him atthe site a few days later and detailed applicable requirements or standards.Without prescribing, he made suggestions for possible plan modifications. We re-worked and re-submitted the plan. On June 30

th, we had our permit just in time for

our July 4thweekend volunteer brigade.

Over the next twenty weeks, Steve would come by almost weekly forinspections required at various stages and we would call him regularly withquestions. Though never short-changing his role ensuring compliance, he seemedto root for the projectscompletion in part because the whole idea intrigued him.He also came to recognize the quality of work and the conscientiousness wedemonstrated, something he clearly valued more than the conventionality andcredentials we lacked. One day, he observed: Id be out of a job if every project Iinspect achieved the quality of this one.


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We built two studio rooms inside the existing living/dining room

completely free-standingand unattached to the walls, floor and ceiling. Thestudiosone for broadcast and the other for productionformed an L with ashared window containing two panes of half-inch thick glass. The studio floorjoists rested on some 250 heavy rubberbracket coasters. Rigid foam sheets

filled the cavities between the studio walls and the rooms originalwalls. Studiowalls and ceilings had double layers of insulation and drywall, also for soundreduction. We had to frame and drywall a dozen four-foot wide wall sections inthe back yard, carry them in and nail them into place.

All of that material added thousands of pounds of load. Though the housestood on a solid stem wall retrofitted under its perimeter in the mid 1980s, Stevecalculated that we had to install reinforcing footings and blocks under the housescentral support beams. Adrian and PCUN field organizer Leodegario Vallejospent hours under the house digging a 25-foot long trench six inches deep and

twelve inches wide. We cut neat square holes in the pine flooring above the trenchline, wheeled in batches of concrete mixed in the front yard, poured the concretethrough a chute Aaron specially constructed. Under the floor, Adrian and Hozkarpushed the concrete into form.

Predictably, having only exactly seven weeks to frame, insulate, wire,ventilate, drywall, mud, tape, sand and primer the studios meant that we sweated afew just in timeepisodes (formerly known as crises). Some can only bedescribed as self-inflicted, such as the electrical work.

It seemed that the relief of getting the building permit caused me totemporarily lose my planning nerve, allowing me to persuade myself that, sincethe building belonged to us, we could install the wiring ourselves. As weapproached that stage of work, I filed for the permit. The county electricalinspector, who arrived the following day, left a yellow carbonless form tacked tothe framing. Its hand-lettered text read electrical contractor license required toperform work followed by an Oregon Administrative Rule cite.

Shaking off a paralyzing sense of dread, I called a half dozen people I knewconnected in some way to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers(IBEW) Local 48 in Portland. We had at most about two days of drywall workthat could proceed before reaching the point of closing up walls through whichwiring had to run. Billy dispatched an emergency appeal to his network. Forty-eight hours later, his network came through.

John Bates, an IBEW member, called my cell phone. I knew nothing aboutJohn, but, as we would soon see in his work, he got right to it. After confirmingwhat we needed, he reported that hed already convinced his employer, a small


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principles and decision-making processes. A committee developing proposedprogramming guidelines had worked steadily during and after the mass gatheringsin the fall and spring. At the assembly, the committee presented their proposal tofifty PCUN members and leaders. It included one of the shortest missionstatements ever: Educate, Entertain, Raise Consciousness. We discussed and

approved guidelines for selecting programming, a process for appealing removalor denial of a program, and duties and qualifications for members of aprogramming committee. The assembly closed with nominations for thatcommittee (submitted to the PCUN board for appointment decisions) and anentertaining series of one-minute pitches of program ideas. For twenty minutes,we became a sort of test audience for shows named Cocinando Con Gordo(Cooking with Gordo), Un Todo en Tres Puntos (All In Three Points), andNacer Mujer en Cualquier Parte (Women Born Everywhere).

Hozkar led the committee as the inaugural Director of Programming. His

New Voices Fellowship began in early June and with it, his role as KPCN-LP full-time staff. He had gravitated to programming at the very first mass gathering tenmonths earlier and he played a facilitating role in fashioning the programmingprocess proposal.

Hozkar already had several leadership roles to his credit. A formative onegrew out of his experience at Woodburn High School where he had enrolled afterarriving from Oaxaca at the age of fifteen. He encountered the isolation anddisconnection experienced by countless newly-arrived immigrant students andresponded by founding a mutual support organization. Though heavily Latino, it

initially incorporated Russian students as well.

Early in his senior year, Hozkar joined the Oregon contingent of theImmigrant Worker Freedom Ride, a two-week odyssey traversing the country. Enroute, Hozkar delivered an impromptu address to hundreds of supporters on theUtah Capitol steps in Salt Lake City. His poise and thoughtful message impressedobservers and Freedom Riders alike.

After graduating in 2004, Hozkar worked temporarily for Voz HispanaCausa Chavista organizing Latinos to vote in the fall election. He stayed on withVHCC organizing community participation in the Woodburn School Districtsprocess to split the high school into four small schools. Seeking the NewVoices Fellowship gave Hozkar pause at first. He overcame his doubts, propelledby the prospect of fulfilling a childhood dream of working in radio. Why arentyou in college? former teachers would ask when they crossed paths. TheMovement is my university without walls, he would invariably reply.


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Even to the casual observer, Hozkar brought a contagious energy to his

roles in radio, especially on-air. Add to that his keen appreciation of pop musicand cultural trends, his quick thinking and politically awareness, and its nowonder that another FM Spanish-language station quickly tried to lure him away.

Securing our perch (part two)

Essential though it was, reaching agreement with the City on antennaplacement seemed, as the late PCUN President, Cipriano Ferrel, often said, likegetting the talking donei.e., the easypart. Actually hoisting and installing theantenna up there, would, by contrast, require real work.

Thanks to advice from Andy, Petri, and several collaborators on thePrometheus tech listserv network, we resolved to place the antenna at or near thewater tanks north pole. While the antenna itself looks quite unimpressive

tubular steel one inch by two feet in a bubble-blowing wand shape, positioning itwith sufficient clearance above the tank surface called for attaching it to a 14-footmast, complete with lightening rod. And since winter storms can generate 100-mile-per-hour winds, securing the mast upright required sturdy metal bracingfirmly bolted to the ladder railings and placed as close as possible to the top of thetank.

Petri strongly and correctly advised that we begin designing and fabricatingthe antenna armature well in advance of the barnraising, starting with a close upexamination of the upper ladder, cat-walk and the cable path. This, of course,

meant getting access, available only after we obtained and submitted an insurancerider to the City. Our insurance company finally came through on August 4th. Wehad just two weeks to go before the barnraising.

For months, Adrian had steadily been eyeing the water tower challenge.Once the City gave us the key to the ladder guard lock, he was itching to climb.Though he played it cool in his full body harness with safety hooks, he must havewracked at least a few nerves on the first climb straight up the narrow, one-hundred foot steel ladder which had no protective cage. I watched from theground below and it made menervous. In the days that followed, Adrian wouldmake a half dozen more ascents, underscoring the extremes he would endure orrelishfrom digging, prone, under the radio house to standing atop the Woodburnworldall to put KPCN-LP on the air.

Nine days before the barnraising, it suddenly dawned on me who couldhelp us with the metal and welding work: Lzaro Ybarra. I couldnt believe hehadnt occurred to me, but it wasnt a momenttoo soon. I swung by his parentshouse a half mile away where hed lived on and off for as long as Id known him.


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Luckily, I found him there and explained the project. We stood on the sidewalkand both looked up at the water tower. Im in, he said, after a momentscontemplation. Lets go to my friend, Joelsplace, and get my welding kit, hecontinued, the m

you can hear us now: the story of radio movimiento

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