IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD : Oxnard: Latino Majority Reshapes Political, Business Landscape

Oxnard, Ventura County’s largest city, has seen a historic shift of power in the last year: It has its first Latino mayor, first black councilman and only the fourth Latino councilman in its 90-year history. The city was stratified for much of the century along the interests of Anglo farm owners and Latino farm workers--important interests in a county that had a crop value of $722 million in 1992. Recent elections signaled a changing of the guard.

During the past decade, the number of Latino-owned businesses more than doubled, to about 400. A strong Latino middle class--many of them Oxnard natives returning home after completing their education--emerged. In a highly diverse Latino community, some people trace their California roots back 150 years, some families immigrated from Mexico after World War I and World War II, and others are more recent immigrants.

Many Latino residents attribute political gains in part to organizing efforts by the late Cesar Chaves and his United Farm Workers among the area’s farm workers. The three new council members were born and raised in La Colonia, a primarily farm workers’ barrio on the city’s east side. Chavez’ city-based voter group, Community Service Organization, is seen as the foundation for the evolution of Oxnard’s Latino community. Advances in the community’s prosperity and power are tempered by concerns about whether poor and recent immigrant interests will be adequately represented.

COMMUNITY ACTIVIST

Ismael de la Rocha

Organizer of Latinos for Better Government, a voter awareness and registration group, and history professor at Ventura College

I’ve lived in the area for 20 years. Oxnard was a very colonial town. (There was) the idea that this is the grower, the patron, these are the workers. Now there is a sizable professional and business class (in the Latino community). It’s probably doubled in the past 10 years. (But) what happens on the farms is pretty much the same--we still have the exploitation, the poor wages and housing for workers.

There’s a kind of contradiction: we have the poor farm worker and we have professional and business community growth (in the Latino community). We’re making an adjustment, and it will take time in terms of working together as working class and middle class. The Mexican American Chamber of Commerce focuses on business and how do we bring in business, and the professionals focus on their (issues) and that’s great and important. But what about the real poor, the campesino that still needs health care, the youth who have no place to go? We’re working hard to have people realize that they are still part of the community, even though they might have made it economically that there’s a lot of people out there still suffering and hurting. We can make changes and develop some unity even if we have class, political and ideological differences.

IMMIGRANT WORKER

Armando Garcia

Resident and chairman of Oxnard-based the Coalition for Immigrant Rights and United Farm Workers public relations director, 1981-87

It’s interesting for Oxnard to place (itself) on the map as the location of the first school anywhere to be named for Cesar. The city was one of the early places in the 50s where Cesar came to organize farm workers. There was a lot of prejudice against the Mexican American community, no doubt about it.

I think the United Farm Workers planted the seeds of all of the gains (in the Latino community) here in Oxnard and around the nation. Here you have the first Latino mayor elected in the city.

The union has a slogan: ‘Si se puede.’ It means, ‘Yes, it can be done’. (In the past), most of the Mexican-Americans, they said no it cannot be done because whoever is in power is more powerful than us. Cesar said, ‘It can be done. And this is the way to do it.’ People learned from Cesar’s experience how to organize and how to put it in practice.

FARM WORKER ATTORNEY

Lee Pliscou

Directing attorney of the Oxnard office of California Rural Legal Assistance

Changes have been been taking place, including visibly recognizing non-white power bases in the Oxnard community. (But) there’s always danger in talking about Hispanic or Mexican or African-American communities as if each of those groups are unified (within themselves and between each other) and all share similar interests, concerns, problems, etc. While we might be able to say that the traditional Mexican farm worker has achieved a power base and advanced it may not be true for the most recent immigrants.

The power pie is being divided up differently. I don’t know that this has to do so much with race, ethnicity, or gender or the ways we have traditionally divided the power pie. I think this has to do with the haves and the have nots. The haves are the ones who participate and who are represented in government. The have nots of yesterday may be the Mexican farm worker and the have nots of tomorrow may be the indigenous recent immigrants.

What impresses me about a city more than its racial or ethnic or gender makeup is how many have a vision for the city that goes beyond the haves but that also embraces the have nots. The city like most in this state is going to do the best it can with a lot of political and economic constraints that face the community.

Oxnard

* Population 1980: 108,195

Population 1990: 142,192

* Population by race and ethnicity (1990)

Hispanic: 54%

White: 32%

Black: 5%

Asian: 8%

Other: 1%

* Population by race and ethnicity (1980)

Hispanic: 44%

White: 43%

Black: 6%

Asian: 6%

Other: 1%