Description

Single Woman Double Clutches by Kate Hitt

Poetry, commentary and 51 full-color photographs taken and compiled by letterpress printer and book designer author/artist Kate Hitt who drove the big yellow school bus and thousands of kindergarten through 12th grade kids to and from their schools for 14 years. “Single Woman Double Clutches” explores the hard work and dedication of the California public school bus driver, and the hearts and minds of the students she drove: some from white and upscale parents who worked in tech, some whose parents ran business and worked in the community, but most from Spanish-speaking immigrant and farmworker families. Side by side on the school bus every day, the kids experienced the social diversity of many cultures, ages, gender, and race. The poems depict the students’ humor, wisdom, and deep intelligence, while the prose and the views from the bus detail the agricultural history, the spectacular beauty, and the complex demography of the Monterey Bay coastal landscape. The author and photographer, who lived in the Santa Cruz, California area for almost 35 years, has some answers to questions about the immigrant refugees who have crossed over the southern border to work in the fields and orchards, and why they try to make a new life in the US despite racism, language barriers, poverty and many other challenges. The most egregious betrayals are the federal incarceration and deportation of innocent people, the use of toxic pesticides around the schools, and the political system that bars the child immigrants from becoming citizens.