Kristin Ingram-Worthman

Shortly after I arrived at Lin and Pete’s house, a few days before he died, Pete asked me to get the hat he is wearing, a Brooklyn Dodgers hat from 1915, from the closet so we could take this photo together. This photo, the last Pete took, is so special to me. It brings back so many memories.

From the time I was very young, Pete took me to Dodger games. We climbed what seemed like an endless number of stairs to sit in the top deck behind home plate, because as Pete explained, those were the best seats. From there, we could see the whole field. Pete always bought a program so we could keep score together. He taught me how to note what each player did using letters, numbers and symbols in tiny boxes. Even though we were at live games, someone sitting near us usually had a transistor radio, with Vin Scully calling the game, because as Pete explained, Vinny knew so much about the Dodgers, and no one could analyze plays like Vinny could. The Dodger game was also where Pete taught me not to stand up for the Star-Spangled Banner.

There are two specific games that stand out as memories. I think it was for my eighth birthday that Pete took me to the Dodger game. He told me that he tried and tried to get the Dodgers to print “Happy birthday, Kristin,” on the message board, but he couldn’t do it. It didn’t bother me because I was more than happy with what he did instead. We were sitting in the bleachers during either batting practice or fielding practice, and he yelled to Reggie Smith, a Dodger outfielder, to tell him it was my birthday. Reggie Smith looked at me, smiled, and waved.

The other game I remember was in 1988. I am almost sure it was the seventh game of the playoffs; a game I didn’t know I’d be attending. I was about to walk home from Venice High School when I saw Pete’s cream-colored Tercel. I was so excited when Pete told me we were going. It was a great game! The Dodgers won, and then went on to win the World Series!

Growing up as Pete’s youngest daughter was, as Catha wrote in her tribute, very special. As red diaper babies, the way Catha and I were raised was special. As part of my childhood development coursework, I read about anti-bias education, which is an approach to teaching with four goals, to teach young children to feel good about themselves, appreciate diversity, recognize unfairness and have the words to describe it, and then to act against it. As I read about anti-bias education was exciting because I finally had words to describe how I was raised. It was more than multicultural education. Even more exciting to me was to realize that the book I was reading from, Anti-bias Education for Ourselves and Our Children by Louise Derman-Sparks and Julie Olsen-Edwards, was written in 2009, about forty years after Catha and I were born. I feel like Pete and Lin were ahead of their time. 

I have so many memories. From the time we were very young, Pete taught Catha and me the importance of political activism. Catha and I knew all the words to songs like, “Solidarity Forever,” “We Shall Not be Moved,” and “We Shall Overcome.” We went to many, many demonstrations. Some of the demonstrations I remember most were the demonstrations to make Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. 

After Dr. King’s birthday became a national holiday, Pete helped me get involved with the Los Angeles Student Coalition, a group of junior high school and high school students who led protests at the South African Consulate in Los Angeles on Martin Luther King Day. One year, Pete took me to a breakfast hosted by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor in honor of Dr. King’s birthday where Jesse Jackson was a speaker. It must have been held on Dr. King’s actual birthday, not the national holiday, because I needed a note for school. Pete suggested that I ask Jesse Jackson to sign my note so that the people in the attendance office would believe me. Pete wrote the note. “Please excuse Kristin for being absent from school on January 15. She was having breakfast with Jesse Jackson.” Pete signed it, and Jackson’s signature was right next to his. 

I also have other memories related to school, some of which I will share here. Pete often drove me to elementary school in a 1965 red Volvo that he inherited from Lou, Lin’s dad. The reason I remember the car so much is because it had a loose solenoid, so in order to start it, Pete would have to hold on to the front fender and shake the car. On the way to school, sometimes Pete would talk to me about how cars work. He would tell me how the pistons went into the cylinders, lit sparks, and the wheels turned. As Pete drove, we listened to jazz. Pete would talk to me about the musicians and the instruments they played. He taught me how to identify instruments by the sound they made. He showed me that a trumpet could make a different sound if the musician used a mute. 

In 1984, my classroom had a bulletin board of the candidates running for President of the United States. It included Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan. I remember asking my teacher why Jesse Jackson’s picture was not included on the bulletin board. She told me the bulletin board only included the “major candidates.” When I told Pete about that, he went to school to talk to the principal, an African-American woman who had also been my first-grade teacher. When I was in junior high school, Pete and I went to a meeting to hire a new history teacher. I learned about affirmative action as Pete argued with other parents, insisting that it was not only important to hire a non-white teacher, it was the law.

When I was in high school, I struggled with the advanced math classes I took. Luckily, however, I had Pete to help me. Pete was very skilled in math and would spend what felt like hours helping me. My teacher would sometimes invite me to share the strategies Pete taught me to help other students who also struggled. Pete also taught me how to write a research paper. Together, we wrote a paper on the origins of racism. 

Pete’s activism was not limited to attending demonstrations or his work with unions. When I was in high school, someone stayed at our house as part of a South African trade union tour. When Luis Enrique Mejia Godoy and Mancotal were on tour, the members of Mancotal stayed at our house. The place where they were performing was a club where you had to be over 21 to get in. When Pete and I went to ask if they would make an exception, they said no, but encouraged me to get a fake ID. I borrowed an old ID of Catha’s and was able to see them perform.

Pete loved hearing about my work, both as a teacher and a student. He loved when I told stories about the funny things the children did. Right before Pete’s health took a turn for the worse, I began a child development program through the Los Angeles Unified School District. A couple of days before my first class, Pete went into the hospital for the last time. Right before Pete died, he told me he didn’t want me to take time off of work or to wallow in sorrow, but he did want me to do well in this program. I have dedicated my work in this program to Pete’s memory. A couple of weeks ago, I got my grade for the first project I turned in. I worked extra hard on it and received the highest grade possible, “innovating,” I have always worked hard and earned good grades, but this grade means so much more to me.

Pete inspired me to stand up for myself and others, fight for justice, and work hard. I miss him so much. I want to end with a story about something that happened around Christmastime that was definitely Pete-inspired. On Christmas Eve, I went to Starbucks, which was closed due to a five-day strike. The Starbucks I went to was near Disneyland and used regularly by lots of tourists, As Pete and I used to do, I spent some time talking to the two workers sitting outside. I introduced myself to them using my Starbucks name “Union Strong,” which I use to support the baristas in their struggle for fair wages. One of the women told me that thirteen of the fifteen workers voted to strike, and I congratulated them on shutting Starbucks down. Pete is no longer with us, but he is always with me. 

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Edward Ingram: My Memories of Paul Worthman

My experiences with Paul Worthman began with my relationship and eventual marriage to his intelligent, profound, unique, and one-of-a-kind daughter, his youngest daughter Ms. Kristin Worthman. I was attracted to Kristin because of her abilities to be cogent, coherent, intelligent, beyond wisdom for her age, with a political, yet kindred nature, unbelievable for a young woman of her age. 

As I came to know some things about her father, mother and her older sister I knew I had stumbled into a loving family that excelled in cultivating pure genius ethics into their lives. I learned by the actions of the genius Paul Worthman, through endeavors to conquer inadequate wages and inadequate protections in the workplace. A champion to Teamsters, Farmworkers, Hospital Workers as he worked to organize demonstrations that transformed traffic in major cities and stopping freeways as tens of thousands marched in protest taking a stand for worker rights and the decency and dignity to which every human being is entitled. I recall learning he had the outstanding career credentials to be awakened at midnight by union negotiators asking his presence in the meetings and him being paid from that moment rising to the occasion, taking a cab then a plane, and as he arrived taking over the negotiations, that the opposition were seen taking Excedrin and Advil because it was going to be a longer weekend. I learned to have respect for my father-in-law, both for his intellectual prowess his understanding of the fight over alienation from the means of production, but to know the importance of life with justice, representation and civil rights. 

I have found he passed this outstanding quality on to his daughters as I have come to know my wife has the amazing and unique ability to get to the bottom line in any political conflict with equity better than anyone I have ever heard of with maybe one exception, perhaps the outstanding former President Jimmy Carter. 

I could go on and on about the wonderful ways in which I became involved in family gatherings, trips, outings to theme parks, but my favorites were always the nature excursions, including hikes amongst the tallest Redwoods on the planet. My life as an African-American is a multitude of life experiences, some good, others things needless to say, horrible. I am more than fortunate to have, accidentally in my lifetime, not only to meet, but spend time getting to know such a profound, vehement, masterful genius of political and social theory. As you see, I came to realize that Paul Worthman is qualified beyond mastery to fix the enigma called the United States. I am sorry for my mother-in law Linda Worthman, as she must endure, and is now without her soulmate of so many cherished years, and this affects every family member. The entire world and thus the universe will be challenged to continue without such wisdom. My father-in-law, Mr. Paul Worthman, will be remembered, and may he forever rest in peace.

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It was a special thing to be Paul Worthman’s daughter. His “favorite oldest daughter,” he called me, and my sister Kristin, his “favorite youngest daughter.” 

Pete was all the things you know – brilliant, passionate, funny, a jock (if lapsed somewhere in midlife when he was bargaining around the clock and living on coffee, fast food and cigars), anti-elitist, committed to making a world that wasn’t based on capitalism, racism, sexism, imperialism, or ecological exploitation – and not at all sentimental about it. 

Pete also cared deeply about being a father, even if he didn’t go by the label “Dad.” (The reason being, Lin and Pete wanted Kristin and me to see them as people, not as their roles.) In the last month of his life, I was lucky to take time off work and spend long days again with him and Lin. One of the most moving things he said to me during this time was how he valued being able to talk with his closest friends about parenting. 

He had a side of him that was deeply wise and generous, and I felt that I was seeing a part of the “real” Pete when that side emerged. It was the side that believed wholeheartedly in me and Kristin and gave us the freedom to take risks and grow, the same side maybe that helped him settle complex and contentious bargaining disputes, loved James Baldwin when he was in college, and sent us all articles that expressed deep grief about the war in Gaza  — articles by Judy Butler, Masha Gessen, and one about a swim team in Jerusalem and the divisions that arose between Palestinian and Israeli kids after October 7. 

He cared tremendously about Kristin’s and my political education and training. We grew up going to picket lines and demonstrations and were often given jobs to do. We knew how to ask someone to sign a petition or take a flyer just like we knew how to breathe, notwithstanding (at least my) natural shyness. When we drove around L.A. together (often heading to swim practice or a swim meet), he explained L.A.’s racially constructed geography, the history of each neighborhood and its inhabitants and workers, why there were food deserts, and it seemed like he knew everything that mattered. 

Pete was for many decades my mentor and closest intellectual collaborator, maybe beginning with first grade when he coached me to ask my teacher why there were two lines (boys and girls): why not three? Breaking down categories from the beginning. When I was in fourth grade, he trained me how to do original source research in the census for a biography of Harriet Tubman. In high school, he tried to teach me how to write about dialectical materialism for a paper on Rockefeller and Eugene Debs. When I worked as an organizer and researcher in the labor movement, he collaborated with me on strategy and shared complaints about the bosses and corrupt union leaders. When I later became a lawyer, I talked with him about my most important cases before I argued them. Some of the best advice I got came from his training union members to present grievances to an arbitrator:  Start with a simple, compelling sentence, “This is a case about …”

There are so many stories I want to tell, but since it’s the holiday season I’ll focus on a couple appropriate to this time of year. One is that I gave him the sweatshirt that he wore almost every day for the last three years: a picture of Marx (looking a lot like Santa) with the slogan, “All I Want for Christmas is the Means of Production.” I bought him two new sweatshirts for his last birthday, including a fresh one and one that said “I’m Dreaming of a Red Christmas,” figuring he could use a refresh. But he only wondered why I spent the money on them. (One of the things I realized about him, though, in looking at old photos, was that Paul Worthman had a stylish side earlier in life… maybe we’ll get to post those photos sometime.)

Pete could be grumpy about “bourgeois holidays,” but there were many years when he channeled the Christmas spirit, like the Marxist Santa he was. Red diaper babies though we were, Kristin and I grew up waking up before dawn Christmas morning excited to see what was in our stockings. Pete would wear the red Santa hat – like Lin’s dad Lou did before him – and hand them out. Inside were funny little items from the discount dollar store Pik n Save, all with witty comments written on the tags.  Along with Christmas bathrobes, slippers, books, bikes, and other traditional items, we got gifts like the Class Struggle board game, and – my favorite – one I received as an adult, this tear apart Boss Doll the year I was non-stop complaining about my boss. 

When Alex and Tenaya were born, I got to go with Pete to Pik n Save and acquire discount holiday items to try to give them the same experience. He loved his grandkids both so much, of course, and I’m so glad they both got to spend time with him before he died.

Pete was raised Jewish, although decidedly atheist and anti-Zionist as an adult, so some years we also celebrated a version of Hanukkah – a version where the workers triumphed because they collectivized their oil, because it lasted longer that way and everyone had enough when they shared. 

Not a holiday story, but one I think of often as a highlight. After the Soviet Union collapsed, like many leftists Pete was depressed. Not that he had ever been anything other than a deeply critical, anti-Stalinist, but at least the U.S.S.R. represented the possibility of an alternative to capitalism and support for such alternatives around the world.  But then … the Rangers won the Stanley Cup! Pete was transformed, and his spirits lifted.  I saw them lifted again when the Dodgers finally won the World Series just before he died. The Bums finally succeeded, just like he knew they would if they ever listened to his advice.

While Pete was in hospice, I reflected often on the gifts I got from being his daughter. Unfortunately, I didn’t get his talent for ball sports (despite his giving me a baseball glove to sleep with when I was an infant), but I hope I can carry on his vitality, energy, passion, confidence, loyalty to his people and causes, and commitment to making a better world. I see those things in my kids, too. 

And I have realized, too, I’m grateful I got to grow up close to Pete’s full expression of emotion, including anger — a gift that can sometimes be hard to appreciate, and may be one of his defining characteristics to the people who know him best. Anger, says the poet David Whyte, properly understood, “is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt.” Anger, he continues, is “the purest form of care.” There is no real wisdom, no real commitment to transformation, without anger. “The internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for.”  If you read this essay, I think you’ll recognize Paul Worthman.. I miss him.

One last thing, although I want to keep sharing more: Pete sent me cassette tapes regularly my first year at college, when I was missing home. He passed on his love of what we could call anti-fascist music to Kristin and me, and we made this playlist. Hope it reminds you of him, too.

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