Despite Some Woes, Many See El Rio as Their Oasis

Traffic on the Ventura Freeway whips past Louie Rocha’s El Rio house at a frantic pace, creating a constant roar that pierces the thick cinder-block walls. Yet he tunes out the noise.

To Rocha, his home in this tiny community just outside Oxnard is still the peaceful haven he built for his family 49 years ago. He insists that the water from neighborhood wells is still pure, despite occasional warnings to the contrary from health inspectors.

He says the El Rio streets are still safe, although shootings are not uncommon and members of one of the county’s most active gangs stalk the neighborhood.

On Saturday night, violence erupted once again when three people were shot and injured, one critically, during a fight at a baptismal party.

Although signs of decay have besieged the area, it is still seen by Rocha and many others as an everyman’s utopia--a place where a plot of ground can be turned into a dream built of clapboard and stucco.

“When I got out of the service, I just wanted a piece of land to call my own,” said Rocha, 71, who bought half an acre on Cortez Street for $4,700 in 1945. “My wife and I raised seven kids here. They all turned out good. I attribute that to the community.”

El Rio has a population of 6,419--about 64% Latino and 31% white--on fewer than 10 square blocks wedged between Vineyard and Rose avenues, north of Oxnard.

Once considered a country haven, the community is almost entirely surrounded by commercial development. Half of El Rio lies in the shadow of the Ventura Freeway while the eastern portion borders Oxnard’s new auto mall.

However, some of the telltale signs of urbanization are nonexistent here. There is no sewer system; residents use septic tanks as they have for decades. There are no fancy restaurants and grocery stores, only modest markets and hamburger and taco stands along a small commercial strip.

There are no sidewalks or street lights--it is luxury that many people cannot afford.

The majority of El Rio residents are listed as below working class. According to the 1990 census, the median income per household was $35,991--nearly $10,000 below the county’s median. Also, 12.4% of El Rio’s population lives below the poverty level, almost double the county’s average.

Yet for all the problems in this little community, parents who have spent their lives here hope their children and grandchildren will do the same.

Although the homes may be weather-beaten and cracked, they are passed from one generation to the next. The 1990 census found extraordinary stability in El Rio, with 61% of the population living in the same house in 1985, far higher than the county’s overall rate of 45%.

“It’s my turn now to raise my children here,” said Rebecca Dominguez, whose grandfather moved to El Rio in 1910. “I hope to have my grandchildren here. We have a closeness in this community I don’t believe exists in city life. We all have something to be proud of.”

The community was founded in the late 1800s by Simon Cohn, a merchant who set up a general store where the northbound off-ramp of the Ventura Freeway is now located. Originally, the community was called New Jerusalem, but it was later renamed El Rio because of its proximity to the Santa Clara River.

Once dominated by fields of lima beans and sugar beets, the area eventually gave way to development.

From the start, there was a push for independence that, even today, dominates the area’s politics.

“We want to be left alone,” said Rocha, El Rio’s unofficial mayor. “We don’t have street sweepers and all that other stuff, and we don’t want them. If we want the streets clean, the old ladies and the old men get out with their push-brooms and clean our streets.

While other unincorporated areas of the county turned to nearby cities to supply their water and educate their children, El Rio went out on its own.

It has its own water companies, six of them, in fact. And it has its own school district, which operates four elementary schools and a junior high.

Whenever there are rumors that Oxnard might annex the tiny community, residents pepper county officials with petitions to fight the move, saying the city would only raise their taxes.

“People figure that it has been working fine with the way it is, so why not just stick with it,” said Ernest J. Almanza, 58, who has served on El Rio’s school board for nearly 29 years.

And there are other quirky things about El Rio. Within its core, there are more than a dozen churches, although some are now vacant because of a lack of worshipers.

On the street corners, residents set up makeshift fruit stands: four avocados for $1, two persimmons for 25 cents.

Rebecca Dominguez could afford to move elsewhere with her three children, ages 10, 13 and 15. At 38, she has a good job as a paralegal in Ventura. Yet she prefers to remain in El Rio, living just blocks from the house where she grew up.

“The community is so tightknit,” Dominguez said. “Even if you are not related, you feel like you are related. The old ones pass on, and the second or third generation comes in. No one misses a step. It just goes on.”

Roger McDonald, pastor of the First Baptist Church of El Rio, moved to the area five years ago, impressed by the community’s spirit. These days, however, McDonald says he is bothered by El Rio’s tendency to fight progress.

“People resist becoming a part of Oxnard, and I see that as being a bad thing for us,” McDonald said. “It makes us look like a poor community. I don’t like the fact that we are considered ‘Little El Rio’ over here. I would much rather be considered North Oxnard.”

Another troubling aspect of life in El Rio, residents say, are the gangs.

At night, El Rio’s gang members gather at a boarded-up house on Balboa Street. Their activities have become so notorious that residents have nicknamed the avenue Trouble Street. Weekend shootings and stabbings are common.

One woman said she avoids going out after dark because she is afraid. “I’m scared,” said the woman, a resident of Balboa Street. “After the sun goes down, I don’t go out for any reason. They just come here to do trouble.”

Ruth Thomas, 82, has lived in El Rio for more than 20 years. Now she wishes she could move and leave behind the noise and the ruffians.

“There are too many problems here,” she said. “The neighborhood is not what it used to be. . . . I made a mistake not to get away.”

Ventura County Supervisor John K. Flynn, who represents the area, says he is trying to help clean up the community.

The Sheriff’s Department recently stepped up its night-time patrol of the area. Flynn also said he has plans under way to set up a substation on Cortez Street.

In addition, Flynn has started an effort to raise money to build a gym and activity center for area youth.

Yet gangs are only one of El Rio’s woes.

During the worst of the drought, nitrate levels in the community’s water supply exceeded normal limits, prompting state health inspectors to force residents to drink bottled water until the water became safe again.

Lowell Preston, manager of the county’s water resources department, said he believes it is just a matter of time before nitrate levels become so high that El Rio must permanently shut down its wells.

Rocha becomes angry when he hears outsiders talk about El Rio’s problems.

“Here we go again,” he said. “Our water is so good, I can drink it day and night, and it’s perfect. You go to Oxnard, and the water is lousy.

“As for the gangs, we used to have problems here. But we quieted those kids up long, long ago.

“It’s beautiful to live in El Rio. . . . It’s so peaceful here.”