Stories from the East & West Barrios

Acknowledgments

This exhibit was made possible by the generosity of the following:

COMMUNITY CONSULTANTS John Dominguez • Lydia Henry

ORAL HISTORY NARRATORS Tony Baltierra • Lorraine Salazar Campos • Corinne Palos Dearborn Cheva Garcia • David Garcia • Florence Castro Garcia • J. Hector Gonzalez Kirsten Aase Gonzalez • Kito Gutierrez • Robert Salazar • Delia Sevilla Warrior

INSTITUTIONAL PARTNERS California Humanities • Dr. Lisa Crane, Sean Stanley, and Jeanine Finn - Claremont Colleges Library Special Collections • Union Pacific Foundation

COLLABORATORS AND CONSULTANTS Dr. Gina Lamb and Eddie Gonzalez - Pitzer College • Chris Toovey -Claremont Public Art Committee • Briana Jex - Claremont Graduate University

ACADEMIC ADVISORS AND SOURCES Dr. Romeo Guzmán, Dr. Joshua Goode, and Dr. JoAnna Poblete - Claremont Graduate University • Dr. Matt Garcia - Dartmouth College Tomas F. Summers Sandoval Jr. - Pomona College

CLAREMONT HERITAGE TEAM Chelsea Shi-Chao Liu • David Shearer • Shelly Mei • Nicole Blue • Atticus Turner

ASSISTANTS, INTERNS, AND VOLUNTEERS Diane Corsones • Se’maj Griffin • Ashley Rose Little • Gene Luzala • Myles Mikulic • Anahi Ramirez • Onyx Solomon • Jenny Wang • Nathaniel Worley

LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Claremont Heritage, Inc. acknowledges the Gabrieleno/Tongva peoples as the traditional land caretakers of Tovaangar (the Gabieleno/Tongva world, including the Los Angeles Basin, South Channel Islands, San Gabriel, and Pomona Valleys, and portions of Orange, San Bernardino, and Riverside Counties) and Torojoatngna (Claremont) specifically. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work with the Taraaxatom (Indigenous peoples) in this place. As an institution located on unceded Indigenous land, Claremont Heritage pays our respects to Honuukvetam (ancestors), 'Ahiihirom (elders), and̓ Evoohiinkem (our relatives/relations) past, present, and emerging.

Introduction

Stories from the East and West Barrios honors the long under-recognized history of two barrio neighborhoods in Claremont. The East barrio is a neighborhood on the edge of two counties — Los Angeles and San Bernardino, and three cities — Claremont, Montclair, and Upland. The West barrio was a housing complex for citrus industry workers, approximately one mile to the west on the other side of Claremont’s main business district. Together, they formed a marginalized yet vibrant Mexican American community whose story is critical to the history of Claremont and wider southern California.

The history of the East and West barrios are part of a larger history of the many barrios that dotted the landscape of southern California before restrictive covenants were ruled unconstitutional and fair housing laws were implemented. It is a story of civic neglect, institutional racism, and discriminatory land use policies, as well as displacement and gentrification. Yet it is also a story of community building and cultural ties that speak of resilience and resistance. Against great odds, the people of the East and West barrios built a life and home for themselves, founding schools, churches, businesses, social clubs, and civic service organizations.

The stories of the barrios is also a living history, albeit one that many Claremont residents unfortunately do not know of. While the original neighborhood in the East barrio was partially destroyed by the construction of Claremont Boulevard and continues to be encroached upon by the Claremont Colleges, the community persists. Original barrio residents and their children still live in barrio houses. Many descendants continue to work at the Colleges in the kitchens, on the grounds, and at the administrative level. The barrios have also produced prominent activists, artists, scholars, and sportsmen who have made their mark on Claremont history. This history will live on in the upcoming mural project to be painted at El Barrio Park, and through the efforts of community organizers at the Arbol Verde Association.

The story of the Mexican American community in Claremont is critical to a full history of this city. Yet it would not be possible to tell without the support of community members who have generously shared their life stories and personal archives with us. We only hope to do justice to the richness of their experiences. While this exhibition attempts to cover a broad history of the barrios community from its origins in 1910 to the present day, we recognize that this story is incomplete. There are many more stories out there, which we hope to help preserve and pass on to generations to come.

Early Settlers

Many early settlers in the barrios came from the Mexican state of Jalisco. Seeking refuge from the Mexican Revolution and the persecution of Catholics in their homeland, they moved north to settle across the southwest. Some settled in Claremont, California, a small town on the unceded land of the Gabrieleno/Tongva peoples, home to the young Claremont Colleges.

The earliest Mexican settlers in Claremont worked and lived on citrus ranches. The first barrio that existed was formed in 1905 on land owned by Pomona College at Arrow Highway and Alexander Avenue, now Indian Hill Boulevard. It would be succeeded by the East and West barrios of Claremont, Montclair, and Upland, whose stories are told in this exhibition.

Paduanos on Stage

From 1931 to 1974, the Padua Hills Theatre hosted the longest-running Mexican American theater in United States history. H.H. and Bess Garner, members of the Claremont elite and alumni of Pomona College, founded the Mexican Players in the spirit of intercultural understanding. They recruited men and women from the barrios and from south of the border to perform what they considered traditional songs and folk plays from Mexico. The Mexican Players, also known as Paduanos, held roles as actors, dancers, singers, and waitstaff for the dining room in the theater.

Painting a romanticized vision of pastoral Mexico, the plays have been criticized for furthering stereotypes of Mexicans as a carefree, almost child-like people. Yet the theatre also provided a platform for young Mexicans to work outside the citrus groves, and to showcase their talents and exercise some creative agency. All they needed to do, as Paduano relative Michele Martínez recalls, was to “put on that Padua Hills smile.”

Life on the Margins

Meanwhile, life in the barrios was one of hardship and deprivation. Due to restrictive covenants, Mexican American families could not purchase land in Claremont proper. Pushed to the outskirts of town, they contended with subpar living conditions as the result of civic neglect. Problems included absent or inadequate plumbing and electricity, improperly maintained streets, inadequate clean water supply, and lack of sewage systems, disposal, and garbage collection services provided by the city. Houses south of Huntington Drive in Claremont did not have sewer lines set up for them by the city, purportedly due to the expense of installing a line and connecting it to the main system. Such conditions led the Mexican American journalist and civil rights leader Ignacio López to name the East barrio “tierra de nadie,” land of no one.

In spite of systemic oppression, families did what they could to sustain life, building their own homes and maintaining their own livestock, including popular rabbit farms. Residents remember the barrio as akin to one large extended family, where doors were always unlocked and guests were always welcome at the table.The East barrio was built in the direct pathway of a wash running out of the San Bernardino Mountains, leaving it vulnerable to occasional flooding. The land was covered in rocky, barren soil and chaparral. A nearby rock crusher further created dry winds and raised dust.

The West Barrio

The West barrio was approximately one mile to the west on the other side of Claremont’s main business district, next to three of Claremont’s citrus packing houses. Constructed, owned, and controlled by citrus associations, it was made specifically to house citrus industry laborers. Some residents, however, were able to purchase their own property in the barrio. The West barrio was also home to the first school for Mexican children in Claremont.

The photograph (right) was taken from Our Lady of Assumption Church shows the West Barrio area running along in Berkeley Avenue. It shows the bungalows built by the College Heights Packing House on Berkeley Avenue for citrus workers. White employees were provided more costly and better insulated wood frame bungalows, while Mexican workers lived in less expensive, concrete homes with poor insulation and wet, unhealthy conditions.

The Citrus Industry

From 1899 to 1937, citrus was a multi-billion dollar enterprise in Southern California. Much of Claremont’s early growth was financed by the citrus industry and powered by the low wage labor of multi-ethnic groups. Across the valleys of San Gabriel and San Bernardino, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Native Americans, Mexicans, and Anglo Americans worked in groves and packing houses.

College Heights Orange and Lemon Association packing house in Claremont (right) was one of three citrus associations and the largest of four packing houses in Claremont. The original packing house built by the College Heights Association in 1922 still stands today and is now known as the Claremont Packing House, a popular local mall and historic attraction.

Although ranchers sought to maintain racial homogeneity by hiring white workers, agriculture paid low wages that failed to draw in a white workforce. Prior to the 1920s, it was mostly Asian immigrants who were used to solve labor problems. In Claremont, Sikh workers hauled rocks to clear land, laid out groves, and built canals, homes, and dormitories. Chinese rail workers arrived in the 1880s with the extension of the Santa Fe Line and paved the roads of Claremont. Mostly migratory workers, they were driven out of town by white vigilantes and their numbers dwindled with the passage of restrictive immigration legislation.

Mexican immigrants began to dominate the workforce in their stead. They were settled residents who stayed together in families and lived in communities. The citrus industry offered year round employment picking oranges and lemons in the groves, and Mexicans were interested in establishing permanent residency in the United States. Growers also invested in building housing for Mexicans to keep a stable labor base. These early citrus colonias would evolve into the barrio neighborhoods of Claremont.

The Mexican Farm Labor Program, or Bracero Program, was established in 1942 by agreement of the U.S. and Mexico to fill labor shortages during World War II. In Claremont, there were bracero camps on Ramona and Fifth Street. This photograph from 1949 (group photo of workers, right) shows a mixed-race workplace with a predominance of Mexican laborers.

The citrus industry was dominated by a gendered division of labor stemming from traditional interpretations of field labor as ‘‘men’s work.’’ Although most men preferred packing to picking, it was difficult for men to get a job in the packing house.

Mexican American women were traditionally expected to stay home to take care of housework and childcare, but began to dominate the packing houses of Claremont during World War II. White women made up much of the original workforce in these packing houses, but acquired better jobs in the war industry during World War II, leaving more opportunities for Mexican women. The women worked packaging and boxing the fruit, wrapping each individual piece of fruit in paper. They also worked as graders, separating lemons based on size and ripeness, a task that required a high level of speed and dexterity. These women provided much of the labor that made the packing houses profitable.

The East Barrio

The East barrio was a neighborhood on the edge of two counties—Los Angeles and San Bernardino, and three cities – Claremont, Montclair, and Upland. The neighborhood known today as Arbol Verde was first laid out in 1910 as a tract bounded by Sixth Street, Mills Avenue, the San Bernardino County line, and the railroad. The tract was not an initial success, with only a small number of houses built during the first decade, due to the neighborhood’s relative isolation from the main area of development in the community.

Between 1910 and 1920, Mexican immigrants started to settle in the unincorporated area east and south of the Arbol Verde tract. Seeking refuge from the Mexican Revolution, they moved north in search of work and a better life. Many of these families worked in the citrus groves or at the Claremont Colleges, and built homes for themselves in what became the East barrio. The families gradually formed a vibrant community gathered around the Sacred Heart Church.

Escuela Mexicana, or the Mexican School

Beginning in the mid-1920s, Claremont Grammar School kept Mexican and white students separate on its grounds. Because the East barrio was extended over two counties and three cities, children from the barrios were also sent to different segregrated schools across Upland, Montclair, and Ontario. Regardless of where they ended up, Mexican American children were largely taught in English-speaking classrooms with Eurocentric curriculum.

In an effort to preserve Mexican heritage, local residents like citrus foreman Iñez Campos, college groundskeeper Daniel Martínez Sr., and Pomona College student Juan Matute founded the Mexican school, ‘‘Escuela Mexicana de Claremont, Leona Viscario.” There, barrio children learned the Spanish language, Mexican history, and folk songs. This lasted until the Depression, when parents stopped sending their children to Mexican schools in fear of forced repatriation.

The West barrio had the first school for Mexican children, although the teacher spoke no Spanish, making the learning process somewhat difficult. School was first held at a house in the West barrio, later moving to a community house known as “Su Casa,” formerly a Korean male worker’s bunkhouse. It finally settled on a location on 9th Street near Sycamore School.

At Claremont Grammar School, Mexican American children were kept in the auditorium outside the main building, ostensibly separated until they could learn English. Barrio residents like Rosa Torrez remember being punished for speaking Spanish in class and hiding in the bushes to eat cultural foods like tacos. Later, a “Mexican school” was formed out of a converted stable on the school grounds. Torrez would work with principal Eleanor Condit to remove the Mexican school and integrate Claremont Grammar School in 1941. Today, the school is known as Sycamore Elementary School.

The Sacred Heart Chapel

The Sacred Heart of Jesus, or Sacred Heart Chapel, was built in the East barrio in 1938. Before, the nearest Catholic church was in La Verne. Local residents in desire of a local church held jamaicas, or Mexican fiestas, to raise funds for the construction. They served as construction workers and caretakers for the site. The Sacred Heart Chapel became the heart of religious, social, and cultural life for both the East and West barrios. In 1939, a Social Hall was constructed near the chapel to provide an additional locale for Mexican Americans to congregate, and adjacent to the church was a pool hall where men drank liquor and socialized.

The Sacred Heart Chapel was destroyed in 1968 with the construction of Claremont Boulevard.

Our Lady of the Assumption Catholic Church

Our Lady of the Assumption was founded in 1951 to accommodate a growing congregation and celebrated with a procession bearing the altar from the Sacred Heart to the new church. Located on the west side of town, it became the site of regular daily masses by the mid-1960s. The new location was more accessible to predominately white Catholic residents in downtown Claremont and membership by Anglo Americans increased to one third of the total parishioners. Services at the Sacred Heart were reduced to being held only on weekends, although older residents still preferred to congregate there.

When the Sacred Heard Chapel was destroyed, a plan was proposed to have the city bus the older residents over to Our Lady of the Assumption, but it never materialized. The Monsignor held one final mass at the Sacred Heart in the summer of 1967. Following the service, he removed the statue of Jesus from the altar at the Sacred Heart and took it on a procession down First Street and through the Village to Our Lady of Assumption. Barry believed that the symbolic transfer of the statue would signal the joining of the segregated Mexican and white church through racial harmony.

The Intercultural Council Housing Project

In 1947, members of the Claremont Church formed the Intercultural Council to facilitate the building of new housing in a culturally integrated neighborhood. Ten members of the Intercultural Council each put up $500 to purchase twelve tax delinquent lots in the Arbol Verde tract from Pomona College. Half were to be sold to Mexican families and half to white, or Anglo American families as a model for intercultural living. This project was known as “Neighbors, Inc.” Most of the non-Mexican residents were students at Claremont Graduate University, and among them were the Livingstons, the first African American students to be accepted to Pomona College.

ICC houses were designed by architect Lewis Crutcher, a student of famed Claremont artist Millard Sheets. The house plans were available for purchase. Homeowners could also choose to design and build their own homes to lower costs. The design for the ICC housing complex included common areas such as a tot yard and play area, clothes drying yard, wash room with a phone, barbecue and incinerator, and an adult recreation area, as well as Neighbor’s Park. Residents conducted monthly meetings to regulate use and maintenance of these facilities.

Today, the ICC is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for social and cultural significance. A video documenting the history of the ICC housing project as told by its former residents is available to view on the Claremont Heritage YouTube page.

A Community of Its Own

In the early days of Mexican settlement, growers had attempted to constrain Mexican presence to the segregated work camps of the West barrio. Yet Mexican residents created their own community in the East barrio, a space where they could thrive on their own terms.

Against the oppressive forces of civic neglect and institutional racism, they formed a resilient, vibrant community with a tight-knit social and cultural life. While the product of discriminatory land use policies, the barrios provided a sense of protection and belonging away from the racist attitudes that Mexicans experienced in the city proper.

There, Mexican residents organized social gatherings, founded civic service clubs, started businesses, competed in sports, and celebrated religious and patriotic holidays.

The Well Baby Clinic

The Well Baby Clinic project was founded by the Visiting Nurse Association’s Community Chest in the late 1940s to provide baby healthcare for lower income families. It initially started as an informal program held at Mary Sevilla’s house on Brooks Avenue, where women from the barrios would bring their children to receive examinations and inoculations. Dr. John Wilcox served as the advising physician for the program and Margaret Goff as the Visiting Nurse. Earlier health classes were held in the 1930s by the Friends of the Mexicans to educate Mexican Americans on basic hygiene etiquette that they were thought to be deficient in.

Club de Damas

An outgrowth of the Well Baby Clinic, the Club de Damas women’s organization was organized in the 1950s as a club for civic service. The club met at the American Legion Building or different houses in the barrio where they would organize fundraisers, host open forums, and publish demands for policy reform. Some of the issues that they contended with include social welfare, youth employment, and drug prevention. The club also held nutrition, sewing, and upholstery classes for women. Members worked with the Coordinating Council to support youth programs like the Girl Scouts and awarded scholarships to outstanding Mexican American youths at Claremont High School.

Born 1912, Rosa Torrez was a powerful force for unity and reform in the Claremont community. In addition to integrating Claremont Grammar School in 1941, she was instrumental in founding the Club de Damas. Rosa was a strong proponent of promoting community relations between white and Mexican American residents of Claremont. She was also known for her famous taco stands, which she held at the annual Village Venture and Fourth of July celebrations to raise money for various causes. The Rosa Torrez Park in the Village expansion is named in her honor.

The Claremont AC's

Across Southern California, baseball was a popular way of building and maintaining relationships with friends and family in other Mexican settlements. From the 1920s through the 1940s, there was a semi-pro Mexican League that played across the Inland Empire. It included the Claremont Juveniles, Pomona Merchants, Cucamonga Browns, Chino, Questionettes, and other teams from La Verne, Ontario, and Upland. In the 1950s, the first Mexican American men’s baseball team in Claremont was formed with the Claremont AC’s.

The Claremont AC’s were the first Mexican American men’s baseball team in Claremont. While baseball was played by men, it was made possible in large part through the work of women who organized taco booths and baking contests to buy equipment and uniforms, and offered support from the sidelines. Mary Molina Palos and several of her sisters-in-laws came up the idea of holding fiestas and selling tacos to raise money. The Palos family ran a taco booth for years at the Sacred Heart Chapel, then Our Lady of Assumption before turning it over to the Gonzalez brothers to run.

The Enchanted Barrio

Despite the hardships of life on the margins, some residents remember it as a haven. In the words of long-time residents Lorraine Campos and Robert Salazar, it was an “enchanted barrio.” The lively community often hosted house parties, outdoor parties known as jamaicas, and tardeadas, or afternoon dances. Children played in mariachi bands, and youths went dancing at Rainbow Gardens, a popular dance palace in Pomona that operated from 1948 to 1964. Through dances, parties, and sporting events, the community maintained close ties with nearby settlements.

Cooperativa and El Chisme

Residents of the East barrio opened up local businesses to serve their needs, both to have their own cultural foods and avoid discrimination in Claremont stores. Cooperativa, or “The Co-op”, was a local business also known as the Arbol Verde Market. Founded by Mario Serna, it offered spices, vegetables, and meat suitable for Mexican cuisine, as well as the only phone in the barrio. El Chisme, or “The Gossip,” was later founded in the 1940s by Lola Enriquez Rojas and also sold gasoline. The two markets were vibrant hubs of community life.

Youth Programs

In the 1960s and 1970s, a number of social programs were organized by barrio residents to uplift youths in their community. Leaders like Ben Molina, Ray Contreras, Marciano Martínez, and Albert Gutierrez were active in combating juvenile delinquency through implementing educational and recreational programs like teen posts, where youths could do homework, play pool, and listen to records in community. Marilyn Noble, a Pomona College graduate and Arbol Verde resident, also provided an afterschool program and organized field-trips for school-children. A Free School was established at 236 Brooks Street, and a Children’s Center at 205 Brooks Ave.

With the rise of the Chicano Movement, tensions between Mexican and white organizers in the barrios resurfaced. In 1970, Albert Gutierrez resigned from his position as the Children’s Center Director, citing that it had “become a white middle class charity house rather than a beacon of identity for the Chicano community.’’

A Neighborhood Divided

By the 1970s, the East barrio, or Arbol Verde, had become a truly multi-ethnic neighborhood. Through the forces of intercultural experimentation, college expansion, and urban development, the neighborhood evolved into a diverse, though precarious, community. Students, faculty, and newer residents now occupied the space, though the original members of the barrio community still maintained their Mexican roots. Yet residents continued to suffer from ongoing civic neglect by the cities and counties, and faced encroachment from the Claremont Colleges, which pursued its interests in expansion at the expense of the barrio.

Claremont Boulevard

In 1968, Claremont Boulevard was constructed. To clear space for the new four-lane street, the City of Claremont seized the Sacred Heart Chapel, pool hall, and numerous homes owned by long-term residents through imminent domain — and destroyed them in spite of community protests and petitions. The neighborhood was cut in half.

Replacing a county road, the four-lane boulevard would increase access to the Claremont Colleges from the suburbs and to the newly completed Interstate 10 freeway. It would also mark a clear eastern boundary for Los Angeles County and incorporate the East barrio into Claremont’s domain for future development. For the City of Claremont and the Claremont Colleges, these benefits of constructing the boulevard outweighed any costs to the community.

A Pomona College sociologist, Bob Herman, argued in favor of constructing the boulevard. He saw the Sacred Heart Chapel as a symbol of the separateness of the barrio and argued that its destruction would lead to the unification of the parishioners at Our Lady of Assumption. In his 1964 report, Herman proposed a vision of integration that justified breaking apart the Mexican community. Herman later came to regret his support and became active in local historical preservation organization Claremont Heritage.

College Expansion

Since the 1920s, the Claremont Colleges have depended on the barrio community as a labor force to fill positions as janitors, cooks, and groundskeepers. Yet the Colleges also contributed to the precarity of the community as they purchased land in the barrio to serve their own interests, starting in 1922 with Pomona College. Throughout the 1930s to 1940s, Pomona and Scripps College bought land in the neighborhood and relocated bungalow homes for students and staff from campus to vacant lots in Arbol Verde.

Claremont McKenna College, the largest landholder in the neighborhood today, first started purchasing lots in 1958. CMC argued that it needed the property for institutional uses such as employee and student housing, sports fields, and parking lots. It also purported to be acting to improve the safety of the neighborhood, in response to perceived high crime rates in the area. CMC would continue buying land throughout the 1960s and 1970s, changing the demographic of Arbol Verde from a stable neighborhood of homeowners to a temporary residence for college staff and students.

Arbol Verde Neighborhood United

The Claremont Colleges, especially Claremont McKenna College, would take a more aggressive approach to gentrification in the 1970s. Countering them was a new community organization, Arbol Verde Neighborhood United (AVNU, pronounced “avenue”). Led by Arbol Verde resident Jennifer Jaffe, an alum of Pitzer College and Claremont Graduate School, residents organized to fight against evictions and work for renters’ rights. They staged staged letterwriting campaigns to the city and the Claremont Courier, printed anti-CMC t-shirts and posters, held block parties, and organized an annual float for the Fourth of July parade in Claremont.

AVNU succeeded in securing the designation of the neighborhood as a residential space by the city council, but this victory was temporary. The neighborhood was rezoned transitional, then changed to semi-public in 1975. In 1982, CMC again began to evict long-time residents from homes now owned by the college. Some were offered transplanted homes at Blanchard Place in return for their property. By the end of the 1980s, the Colleges owned approximately 80% of the homes in Arbol Verde.

El Barrio Park

In 1972, El Barrio Park was founded to commemorate the history of the barrios and the Mexican American community in Claremont. Barrio resident and Pitzer graduate Ben Molina was instrumental in creating a “joint powers agreement” among the cities of Claremont, Upland, and Montclair to rent the land from the Claremont Colleges and manage the neighborhood park. An agreement was reached to lease 3.7 acres of land for a 10-year period at $1 per year. The three cities shared the construction cost, and barrio residents pitched in by clearing land and building restrooms for the park.

El Barrio Park became a hub of community life, yet remained subject to the Claremont College’s will. Over the years, the size of the park has been reduced and the land given to the City of Claremont. However, individuals in the community have given much contributions. Rosa Gutierrez contributed much to the community, making tacos at fundraising events and working with the Head Start program at the local preschool. She also served as the crafts director for El Barrio Park. Her son, Kito (Arthur) Gutierrez, was the sports director.

Today, a mural project at El Barrio Park is underway through the partnership of the City of Claremont, Claremont McKenna College, and the Arbol Verde neighborhood. A local Claremont artist will be commissioned to create a mural celebrating the neighborhood’s history, culture, and future.