Wall-to-Wall Memories

The 70-foot-long mural in Oxnard’s La Colonia Park is still untitled, but it could accurately be called “The History of La Colonia.”

It’s all there, down to details such as the fieldworker using el cortito, a short-handled hoe that requires the user to stoop over in a backbreaking inverted V position.

El cortito has since been outlawed, said Jesus Rocha, co-director of the nearby El Centrito de la Colonia cultural center.

“Because of Cesar Chavez,” he said, “the workers now use long-handled hoes.”

Chavez is also depicted in the mural that Ventura artist Judy Suzuki is painting for the center, with input from La Colonia’s residents and the park’s users.

“Oh, yes, Chavez spoke at rallies in this park to the farm workers,” Rocha said. “Robert Kennedy is in the mural too. He campaigned for president in 1968 right by this park.”

La Colonia has long had an unusually high concentration of Latino residents. “In fact, La Colonia was built to house the workers of the Oxnard brothers’ sugar beet factory,” Rocha said.

The mural is being painted on a wall that for years was splattered, then resplattered, with graffiti. Rocha thinks the mural team removed up to 20 coats of beige paint from the wall since last summer--paint that the city’s graffiti-busters had used to cover and re-cover scrawlings.

The mural is graffiti-free today.

“The park manager asked me how in heck the wall stayed untouched for a whole month with just a coat of white primer on it,” Rocha said, laughing.

Word had gotten around that it was going to become a mural about La Colonia, and Rocha believes the young people in the neighborhood began to protect it.

Rocha had long wanted to see a mural somewhere in Oxnard on La Colonia’s history, but he didn’t know just where or how to get it done.

Then, last summer, El Centrito hired several young temporary workers.

The local youngsters pointed out the public swimming pool wall. “And they said the community identifies with La Colonia Park. We all began to ask around, ‘If we put a mural there, what would you like to see?’ ”

Invariably, the answer came back: “Put something about Indians . . . maybe something Aztec . . . maybe Cesar Chavez . . . maybe. . . .”

As a result of the survey, Andan Gonzalez, Victor Lopez, Isaeas de la Virgen and Horascio Martinez decided on a historical approach. They did their research at the Oxnard Library. They talked to old folks who remembered both the neighborhood and the park from 50 years ago. They produced a rough draft of what they envisioned.

A native Chumash, the Aztec calendar, a young local boxer who made the U.S. Olympic team, the long-gone sugar beet factory, a Brown Beret member, a computer whose screen says “higher education,” low-rider cars, the Virgin of Guadalupe and the United Farm Workers’ flag all were to be depicted, among other things.

Artist Suzuki, who had done volunteer work for the center in the past, signed on. She and the group then went to Los Angeles for a day to study some of its more famous murals.

“Now Judy is translating all our ideas. This is really a community project,” Rocha said. “And this time, Judy is getting paid--even though it’s not a fair price. She is really willing to listen to the kids, and that’s not usual.”

“I really, really wanted to do this,” Suzuki said, “especially when I heard the word ‘youth.’ And now, since I’ve been coming here every day to work on the mural, I’ve discovered that there’s a lot of talent in this area that isn’t being nurtured.”

Suzuki said the mural, done in acrylic, is 70% finished.

“From now on, it’s just detail work.”

“But please tell people we’re still accepting donations,” said Rocha, whose privately funded community center is paying for the work.

El Centrito de la Colonia is just up the street from the park at 804 Cooper Road. Call 240-1131 for information on donating.