I had heard of the Bakery where he and Patti worked. It is not
strictly a commercial enterprise. Founded about twenty years ago
as an outgrowth of the Catholic Worker Movement, it was meant to
provide employment to individuals who had been involved in the
criminal justice system. Patti is a social and political activist,
well known locally for her efforts in a number of peace and
justice causes. Tony has a slight speech impediment. From his
manner, and by chatting with him, I assumed that he had a mild
impairment of some sort. I learned from a colleague who had met
him before that he had once been in a state developmental center.
I was intrigued with Tony and wanted to learn more about him and
his background.
My interest in Tony was inspired by my participation in the
Community Study. The Community Study is a five year project during
which time a group of about ten researchers plan to meet and follow
along about two dozen individuals with mental
retardation/developmental disabilities. We want to learn about
their place in the community, and who they know. This includes
learning about the people with whom they are connected and the
meaning of these connections and personal relationships to the
individuals with disabilities.
This interest in what has been characterized as the informal,
unpaid, or "natural" relationships of individuals with mental
retardation has come directly out of the concern for the community
integration of such individuals. In the past few years or so,
there has been more of an emphasis on learning about, and
facilitating the personal social integration of individuals with
disabilities (O'Brien & Lyle O'Brien, in press; Wolfensberger &
Glenn, 1973). A commonly held assumption is that many individuals
with mental retardation and other developmental disabilities are
isolated from their community, and do not know many people other
than those who are paid to be with them in some capacity
(Wolfensberger, 1987). This has resulted in efforts to establish
regular contacts between people with disabilities and typical
community members (Bridge & Hutchison, 1988; Cormier, Grant,
Hutchison, Johnson, & Martin, 1986). The goal of these
interactions is to promote close ties between disabled and
nondisabled individuals and rests on the belief that such freely
given relationships will lead to a more complete participation of
individuals with mental retardation in society (Johnson, 1985;
O'Brien, 1987; Taylor, Racino, Knoll, & Lutfiyya, 1987).
In establishing this research project, we gave ourselves the
challenge to identify and contact individuals with disabilities
outside of or with little contact with the formal human service
system. We wanted to pursue the possibility that there were at
least some individuals with developmental disabilities who had made
a life for themselves, or who had been assisted to make a life for
themselves, outside of the traditional community based service
network of group homes/residential facilities and sheltered
workshops/supported employment programs.
And that was one reason why Tony Santi intrigued me. As I chatted
with him for a few minutes each Monday afternoon in the fall of
1989, I learned that he worked part time at the Bakery and lived in
his own apartment. He had once lived in a large, notorious state
institution for the mentally retarded, but had "escaped" (his term)
and had moved back to his hometown of Syracuse. In the late fall,
I asked him if I could interview him, starting early in the new
year. He readily agreed, and added one proviso: that I would spend
time at the Bakery. For as Tony said to me, "you can't learn about
me without spending some time at the Bakery." This paper is an
initial description of Tony, his background, and his life today, a
large part of which is the Bakery and the people who work
there.
Most of what Tony recalls from his childhood are stories and big
events. Like the time his father took the whole family apple
picking one fall. The family, busy filling up their baskets,
didn't notice the owner approach and warn them off. The farmer
chased the Santi family off his land, firing his shot gun into the
air for effect. Instead of paying for the privilege of picking the
fruit, a typical practice in Central New York, Mr. Santi had simply
pulled up to an available field and had his family help themselves.
Tony laughs heartily when he remembers how his father got his
family into the car to drive off--with the apples. Tony missed the
car and was running after it, trying to hold on, yelling, until his
dad stopped to let him in.
Tony recalls his school days with much less relish. He went to a
parochial Catholic school for kindergarten and the first grade,
while going with his brothers and sister to catechism classes, or
what he calls "church school." He had a difficult time in school,
a hard time learning how to read and keep up with the classwork.
According to Tony, the teachers at the parochial school told his
family that he was a "hard case" who needed to be sent to the
institutional school in order to receive an education.
The state institution to which Tony was sent once housed thousands
of residents. It was extremely difficult for Tony to try to
describe and talk about his years in the institution, except to say
what a bad place it was. As he told me in our first interview:
Recently, I read in the paper where they were making that place into a prison, like up at Kingstown. And I said to myself, well at least they got that right. That's what it is, a prison, and no school. At least now they are being honest with the name. It is a bad place.
When I told him that at least some of the original residents were
still living on the same grounds, adjacent to the new prison,
albeit in new cottages, Tony shook his head and replied, " Well,
then I feel sorry for the poor bastards that are still in there.
No one should have to live like that, nobody, no way."
Tony's father did not have the heart to take him to the
institution, so he got Tony's brother to do so. When asked to
describe how the institutional school was bad, Tony told about
being mistreated and abused by both the staff members and some of
the other residents. Tony, a small child, recalled often being
picked on because of his size. He soon developed a reputation as
a "runner," and became known for his various escape attempts.
The first time that he ran away was during a visit from his father.
His father had taken him to a nearby town for an ice cream cone.
The stand did not have a bathroom, so Tony told his father that he
was going across the street to use the facilities there. Tony
walked away, using the gas station as cover. It took his father a
few minutes to realize what had happened, and then he got into his
car and started back down the highway, searching for Tony. Tony,
already on the road trying to hitch a ride, saw his father's car.
He jumped into the ditch until his dad's old Chevy had passed him
by. After the car had passed, Tony got out of the ditch and waved
goodbye to his father.
As Tony tells the story, it was here that he made his first
mistake. He hitched a ride back into Syracuse and returned to his
neighborhood. He did this even though he had been warned not to by
an experienced friend, also a runner, who had told him that one's
home is the first place where the officials came looking for one.
In those days, as today, institutions in New York state are
patrolled by security guards who wear official looking uniforms
with badges and drive patrol cars painted to resemble police cars.
These security people are referred to as the "state school police,"
or the "institution police." After returning to his neighborhood,
but not to his parental home, Tony learned that it had been his
parents who had called state officials and informed on him.
Tony spent several years at the institutional school, nominally
attending classes, and working, typically in a variety of
janitorial positions. He was moved to several different buildings,
and these moves came right after he had run away and then been
returned to the institution. When Tony turned 21, he was
"paroled." On yet another escape, Tony had returned to his
neighborhood. There a friend of the family who apparently kept in
touch with Tony and knew his whereabouts, told Tony to go look up
his father, who had just gotten word that Tony was to be paroled.
Tony and his father returned to the institution and Tony picked up
his discharge papers. To his surprise and dismay, Tony now learned
that his father was not prepared to let Tony return home. Tony was
now on his own.
It was during these years on the street that Tony met up with and
became connected to the individuals with whom he now associates.
These are folks who are loosely affiliated with the Catholic Worker
Movement and/or some of its projects in the Syracuse area. It was
also at this time that Tony got involved with a number of
individuals who had shady pasts and careers. Tony admits to
selling stolen property, and getting mixed up in some unusual land
and house sales. Throughout this period he would get into minor
trouble after making threats by telephone or in person to his
"business partners." He also talks about destroying and
vandalizing property (houses and cars) of some of these
individuals. He was up before a judge for a number of these
offenses.
On the other hand, Tony became connected to a number of welfare
agencies and human service workers. He went to a soup kitchen for
his meals. Someone at the kitchen helped Tony to apply for
welfare. This soup kitchen was also operated by Catholic Workers
and their affiliates. Carla, a woman who was working at the soup
kitchen and living in the halfway house, helped Tony move in there.
It was at the halfway house that Tony met Father Bryan who was
living there himself. The primary mission of this place was to
serve men who had been in jail or in trouble with the law.
According to Tony, Father Bryan thought that the halfway house was
not a suitable place for Tony, so he helped Tony locate a series of
small apartments to live in. Gradually, Tony became adept at doing
this himself. But he continued to move constantly every few months
or so. Father Bryan also employed Tony to clean the halfway house,
and accompanied him on his various court appearances.
Tony told me a few stories about these days. He had gone over to
a business partner's house, and had broken a window with a large
stick, calling to the man to come out and face him directly. The
man called the police. As Tony saw the cruiser turn down the
street in answer to the call, he headed out, and:
I was cutting through the weeds and all that to get down by a mall. The cop was chasing me, and then he tripped. His face went into the mud. And then I walked over to him to make sure he was okay. So I reached my hand out to him and I says, "Do you want me to help you up?" And he says, "Are you one little son of a gun." And then I am looking at him, at his face, and I just couldn't help laughing, I was laughing so hard I just couldn't run anymore, and I said, "Okay, you got me." And then he said to me, "I got to admit that you are a fast runner." And I said, "Well, you would have caught up if you hadn't of tripped."
Tony was in and out of the municipal jail for thirty or sixty days
at a time for a variety of these petty misdemeanors. When Tony
runs into the lawyers and court officials from that period, they
remind him of several incidents like the one above. Tony tells
most of these stories now, chuckling, able to laugh at himself.
But he can still get angry. He recounts a number of incidents with
his court appointed attorney which left him feeling unrepresented,
and disappointment over the betrayal he experienced at the hands of
his numerous business partners. Today, Tony explains his past run-
ins with the law as the result of a bad influence in his life. "It
was like some kind of an evil thing that I had in me to do
that."
Throughout this period, Father Bryan remained in contact with Tony.
He accompanied Tony to all of his court appearances, often wearing
his clerical collar for effect. Father Bryan became well known as
an advocate and friend of Tony's. As Tony said, "Judges knew there
was a slight problem whenever Father Bryan came to court." Their
relationship has endured over the years, and today Tony says that
Father Bryan is, "one of my best friends. We go way back."
Before going to jail, Tony belonged to two different but related
worlds. The first was the world of petty crime, theft, and selling
stolen objects. The other was the world of those committed to
trying to help out people who were poor, living on the street, and
having difficulties with alcohol or the law. On the scale of
things, Tony's forays into crime were not "big-time," but as what
was once known as a "bum," he had been inducted into a street
society that included both of these groups of individuals and
networks.
According to Tony, it was around the time of his incarceration that
Father Bryan became Tony's representative payee. This meant the
Father Bryan controlled Tony's welfare monies and disbursed the
monies to Tony every month as he needed them. So Father Bryan took
care of Tony's financial affairs, such as they were, while Tony was
in jail. He also visited Tony once a week, and made sure that Tony
received some of the amenities that only outsiders can provide to
inmates (like extra snacks and cigarettes).
Like the earlier time when he lived on the street, Tony found
himself a series of apartments to live in. He describes all of
them as having been small, cheap places that he could afford on his
own. He initially worked for Father Bryan, running errands for men
who were in the local detention center waiting to be tried or to be
bailed out. This meant that he would purchase the cigarettes and
snacks that these men could receive, take down bail money for the
low bails (e.g., fifty dollars), mail letters and so on.
Tony met the people at the Bakery when he helped Father Bryan
deliver their bread once a week. Eventually, he got himself a job
in the Bakery. In the beginning, Tony started out by bagging the
bread, that is putting the cooled loaves into plastic bags,
labelling them and then sealing them. But his role quickly
expanded. As Tony tells it:
One guy broke me in on the cinnamon buns, and how to seal them packages tight. And then from that I was doing the dishwashing and from the dishwashing it extended into a lot more heavier work.
Today, his official job title is "Jack of all trades." He is proud
of that title, which is printed in the brochure about the Bakery.
He cleans but also helps with all aspects of the bread production,
and is one of the few people who can easily lift the heavy, wet
dough. The Bakery closes during the summer for three months.
During this time, Tony tries to earn money as a janitor, mowing
lawns, and other odd jobs which are generally arranged by others at
the Bakery.
This dual nature of the work in the Bakery is reflected in the
language that the people use there. First are the terms that deal
with the actual preparation of the bread itself: making the dough,
cutting it, rolling it out, the first and second rise, and so on.
But many of the workers at the Bakery are also aware of and
consciously use the metaphor of making bread in additional ways.
When classes of schoolchildren come to spend a morning at the
Bakery, they are told that the yeast is alive, a living organism,
and that this causes the bread to rise. This is compared to the
actions of humans who through a small effort in the right place and
right time, can cause ferment, and some positive change to
occur.
In this paper, while I will not go into any detail describing the
physical work of baking, I do want to describe this second aspect
of the work that takes place at the Bakery.
Olivia is the matriarch of a large family that is involved in many
of the activities of the parish where the Bakery is located.
Olivia is the assistant manager, and is in charge when Liza is
away. Father Bryan is responsible for much of the distribution of
the bread.
Tony and Danny are the youngest of the regulars who work at the
Bakery. Danny is a quiet man who keeps to himself. He bags the
bread. He occasionally misses work, due, it is believed, to his
glue sniffing. When this happens, Father Bryan is dispatched by
Carla to seek him out and make sure that he is okay.
In addition to these regular workers, the Bakery hosts many
visitors. Most are schoolchildren who take a field trip to spend
the day. Some individuals volunteer their services at the Bakery
for a number of years, as many of the drivers who deliver the bread
do. All visitors are taught the philosophy of the Bakery: that
baking bread is both a practical and symbolic activity.
The continual and ongoing effort of both Liza and Olivia in trying
to involve Tony in a number of "wholesome" social activities falls
into the category of facilitation. These include invitations to
monthly suppers that are held at the parish, coming to mass, and
other occasional social activities and events that take place.
Olivia tries to facilitate certain interactions between me and
Tony. On several occasions, she tries to get me to assume another
role than that of a researcher with Tony. She calls me his friend
(despite my corrections otherwise) and at least twice asks me to
"reinforce" something with him, typically something that she thinks
would be good for him. For example, she approached me on a few
occasions and openly wondered about where Tony should live, and
could I help him find a group home to live in, so that he wouldn't
have to be alone.
One day, Tony was being teased by others at the Bakery. Olivia
interrupted and asks if people knew that Tony had saved a man's
life. His next door neighbor tried to commit suicide by turning on
the gas in his apartment, and then starting a fire. Tony smelled
it, and tried to enter the man's apartment. He then called the
police and got the caretaker. The two of them broke down the door
and rescued the man. As he was telling the story, Olivia suggested
what he should tell next, so that no details would be missed. By
the end of the story, Tony was downplaying his role, but others
contradicted him and told him how brave he had been to act on
another's behalf with little or no thought to his own safety.
An example of this occurred when Liza arranged a part time job for
Tony. The church where the Bakery is located needed someone to
clean up after the congregation's monthly community suppers.
Olivia and Liza thought that Tony would be an excellent and obvious
choice to take on this role. The suppers end at nine p.m., so the
two women thought that Tony could come in first thing Wednesday
mornings to clean up the hall. Tony refused the job regretfully,
because he could have used the money. But he did not want to be in
the church on Wednesday as he didn't get along with a couple of the
people who would be there.
Liza devised a plan whereby Tony would come in towards the end of
the supper, have something to eat (he generally avoids these
suppers too), and then stay to clean up. It would be late, 9:30,
but he was close to his own home and would not be at risk to walk
the few blocks at that time of night. Tony agreed to the idea of
coming in the evening, and then Liza convinced Father Bryan of the
scheme. Tony is not allowed a key to the church, but Father Bryan
could lock up, leaving one door that Tony could exit the church
from, with the door locking itself behind him. As Liza reasoned
with Father Bryan about the change in schedule to suit Tony, she
suggested that this would be one way to get Tony back to the
community suppers and with people. Both Tony and Father Bryan
agreed to Liza's plan although they had different reasons for doing
so.
The people at the Bakery try to reach out to people in the
community in order to provide food and sustenance. One day a week,
free bread is available from the Bakery to local soup kitchens and
food pantries as well as anyone who happens to stop by. As one
worker said, "On free day, you get the bread for free. It's a
statement. We all need bread to eat, and when we eat the same
bread, it's a statement that we are all the same."
Another example of this attitude was demonstrated the day a high
school student came in and asked how much bread he could buy for 47
cents. Liza told him to put away his money and help himself to a
couple of slices of bread and butter. As she said, "we have bread
to share."
But there is a tension at the Bakery between the efforts at
reaching out into the community and maintaining a level of bread
production and sales in order to keep the Bakery going. This
dilemma was articulated by a long-time baker, who is disappointed
in what she sees as commercialism overtaking the real purpose of
the Bakery as a place for people to come together and associate
with each other.
That's what people today need. Boy, I wish we were more like that here. No, its just not the way I had envisioned it. The commercial has won out. We are so commercial here. I had planned a bakery with a full time day care. Women could come and leave their kids, help out here, or just bring lunch and visit with each other. I knew a couple of women like that, they would have come. But our production has driven out all this kind of stuff.
On the other hand, several of the people working at the Bakery want
to earn the minimum wage or better. This means that a certain
amount of bread must be made and sold. As Father Bryan stated:
We have introduced much more of an economic thing...than used to be the case. People get a stipend for bread baking which is probably more than minimum wage. [To do this] you have to...get enough production...and distribution...to meet the overhead. It changes the atmosphere.
This dilemma will not be easily resolved as those at the Bakery
wish to provide a workplace and a place where often forgotten
individuals would be welcomed. But for Tony and others, working
the Bakery provides both meaningful employment and meaningful
association with others.
Cormier, L., Grant, C., Hutchison, P., Johnson, N., & Martin, L.
(1986). Facilitating friendship and integration for adults.
Leisurability, 13(1), 22-26.
Johnson, T. (1985). Belonging to the community.
Madison, WI: Options in Community Living and Wisconsin Council on
Developmental Disabilities.
O'Brien, J. (1984). A guide to life-style planning: Using the
activities catalog to integrate services and natural support
systems. In B. Wilcox & G. T. Bellamy (Eds.), A
comprehensive guide to the activities catalog (175-189).
Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
O'Brien, J., & Lyle O'Brien, C. (in press). Members of each
other: Perspectives on social supports for people with severe
disabilities. In J. Nisbet (Ed.), Natural supports.
Baltimore: Paul H. Brookes Publishing Co.
Traustadottir, R. (1990). Supports for community
living [Unpublished case study].
Taylor, S. J., Racino, J. A., Knoll, J. A. & Lutfiyya, Z. (1987).
The nonrestrictive environment: On community integration for
people with the most severe disabilities. Syracuse, NY:
Human Policy Press.
Wolfensberger, W. (1972). Normalization. Toronto:
The Canadian Association for the Mentally Retarded.
Wolfensberger, W. (1987). The new genocide of handicapped
and afflicted people. Syracuse, NY: Author.
Wolfensberger, W., & Glenn, L. (1973). Program analysis of
service systems, PASS (3rd ed.). Toronto: National
Institute on Mental Retardation.
Wolfensberger, W., & Thomas, S. (1983). Program analysis of
service systems' implementation of normalization goals
(PASSING). Toronto: National Institute on Mental
Retardation.
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