A new book talks about the history of Chicano activism in Ventura County – Los Angeles Times

Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. Its Friday, Aug. 27. Im Gustavo Arellano.

Cal State Channel Islands history professor Frank P. Barajas is living the barrio nerd dream.

Born and raised in Oxnard, he attended Moorpark College before embarking on an academic career across California. But Barajas came back home in 2001, as one of the founding faculty members of Channel Islands, the most recent Cal State campus to open. Since then, he has taught a generation of students about American history, California history, Chicano history and the many intersections between the three.

In his off time, Barajas has devoted himself to writing essays and books about the history of Chicanos in Ventura County. His first book, Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898-1961" came out in 2012 and took readers from the earliest days of Mexicans in Ventura County to a young Cesar Chavez, whose time organizing in Ventura County made him describe it years later as the most vicious place where his United Farm Workers had tried to organize.

Now, Barajas has published Mexican Americans With Moxie: A Transgenerational History of El Movimiento Chicano in Ventura County, California, 1945-1975. Its a weighty title, but Barajas wisely doesnt allow academic jargon to get in the way of great stories the rest of Southern California should learn because, you know, Ventura County is part of Southern California.

Barajas answered a couple of questions I sent him. Responses have been edited for length and clarity.

What drives you to cover all this? The history of Mexican Americans in Ventura County seems like such a niche topic for folks who arent from there.

I find it critical that colonized people write their own history, as Chinua Achebe charged in his relaying of Until the lions have their historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter proverb. That is why I quote him at the start of Mexicans Americans With Moxie. Because if we dont write our own histories, outsiders will, and we may not like how we are portrayed.

For the rest of Southern California, Ventura County is usually thought of in stereotypes. Conservative eastern suburbs, super-rich Ojai, blue-collar Oxnard, Ventucky and a bunch of farmland. How does your book go past this facile understanding?

Conservatism, socioeconomic fault lines around race and ethnicity were normalized and experienced in my development. But Oxnard, the city where I was born and raised, ran this gamut with folk on its beaches and northside and its working-class barrios. Ethnic Mexicans in positions of power and authority were few. In Mexican Americans With Moxie, I wanted to tell the story of how people my people struggled and strived to live their lives with dignity at work and in their communities.

Whos one activist in your book that people should know about as an unsung hero or shero of Southern California?

Thats a tough question because there are two must really know about heroes/sheroes for me. And that is Roberto Flores [father of noted musician Quetzal Flores] and Rachel Murguia Wong.

As a UCLA student in the late 1960s, Flores championed the cause of agricultural workers and demanded educational justice for Chicanas/os. He did this as a founder of the Brown Berets in Oxnard and as an organizer for the UFW. Flores selfless community activism lives to the present as he continues at the Eastside Caf in El Sereno and is part of the reclamation of unoccupied houses owned by Caltrans to place families in affordable homes.

As a married, middle-class mother of four children during the Chicano movement, Murguia Wong served on several college and community advisory boards, and volunteered her time widely. As an employee and later a board member of the Oxnard School District, she worked indefatigably to ensure equity in the delivery of an equitable education to all schoolchildren. Ultimately, Rachel, as a school board trustee, fought to make sure that the district fully complied with federal Judge Harry Pregerson ruling to desegregate its schools, classrooms and provide a culturally relevant instruction to children delivered by a diverse faculty and staff.

This is your second book on Ventura County Mexican American history. Any plans for a third volume that takes us to the present day?

There is this idea that el movimiento Chicana-Chicano dissipated into oblivion with the 1980s and many ethnic Mexicans of the Chicana/o generation selling out to become Hispanics. However, in the conclusion of Mexican Americans With Moxie, I proposed the research and writing of how women and men of el moviemento went on to careers in education, housing, law and healthcare, and the world of nonprofits to serve people in the agricultural communities of Ventura County. After a bit of rest and the regaining of my footing from the pandemic, I am going embark on this [next] project with a new sense of urgency and anger, as time is of the essence and people, especially youth, must know this history for the continuation of positive social change.

And now, heres whats happening across California.

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California Democrats urge Biden to send us Afghan evacuees: And this was before a suicide attack near the Kabul airport killed dozens, including 13 U.S. military members. Los Angeles Times

Californias top court declines to overhaul death penalty. This despite the wishes of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who wanted to overturn scores of death penalty convictions. Los Angeles Times

Visually incantatory and deeply affecting: Loyola Marymount University professor Anna Harrison reviews Rebel Hearts, the recently released documentary about the Los Angeles congregation of the Immaculate Heart of Mary nuns who antagonized the Archdiocese of Los Angeles hierarchy during the 1960s for their fervent championing of Matthew 5:5 by fighting for better working conditions, including smaller class sizes and greater institutional support. Commonweal

Gentefication vs. Gentrification: Montebellos new Blvd Market container food hall is now open. But dont dismiss it as a mere hipster magnet theres purpose here (shoutout to author Sean Vukan, my former student at Orange Coast College). L.A. Taco

Two former Chicano arts centers in Highland Park become historic landmarks: Speaking of Chicano history, Centro de Arte Publico and the Mechicano Art Center get some support in the beyond-gentrified neighborhood. Eastsider L.A.

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A new book talks about the history of Chicano activism in Ventura County - Los Angeles Times