From the Ground Up
Mexican-American Community Building in Redlands
Redlands today doesn’t always recognize the vibrant history and deep roots of its Mexican-American community. Instead, the city more often highlights the story of white pioneers developing a citrus empire. But this city was built by diverse waves of immigrants who worked in a labor market shaped by racial discrimination ( Maier 2019 ). By the early 1920s, citrus growers were increasingly dependent on Mexican labor to remain economically profitable, and a growing number of Mexican families built and bought homes on the city's North side (Carpio 2019).
Faced with growing anti-immigrant sentiment, California business leaders often said that Mexican workers were only “birds of passage,” who would return to Mexico when their labor wasn't needed (Carpio 2019, pg. 104). But the Mexican settlers in North Redlands were not transient workers. From the city's earliest days, Mexican Americans made Redlands their home, even though they faced segregation and discrimination. These settlers and their families built close-knit communities, vibrant cultural institutions and businesses from the ground up in Redlands (Carpio & Vasquez 2012).
Inland Mexican heritage is a grassroots archive, built by historian Antonio Gonzalez Vasquez, who grew up in Redlands in one of the city's earliest Mexican American families. Part of what historian Genevieve Carpio (2020) calls "the Rebel archive," Inland Empire Mexican heritage has collected photos and oral histories that lets the historic roots Mexican American Redlands come alive. Many of the early families discussed here remain in Redlands generations later, continue to keep community history alive, and have contributed oral histories and photos to the collection that make this StoryMap possible. Since this effort is ongoing, please contact us to share stories and photos.
Community Foundations
Some of the earliest Mexican settlers moved to Redlands in the late 19th century, settling across the still rural geography of the new town.
Epimenio and Jesusita Guzman in 1915 with their children Carlos (seated) and Richard. (Courtesy of Inland Mexican Heritage & Connie McFarland)
The Guzman family settled in Redlands before the city was incorporated in 1888 (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 12).
Epimenio Guzman moved with his brothers from Los Angeles in 1882 (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 20). He opened a blacksmith shop beside his home on Stuart Avenue. Epimento married Jesusita Federico, the daughter of another early settler family. The Federico family migrated to the US in 1880 and lived in Agua Mansa before relocating to Redlands according to Rita Radeleff a descendent (Carpio & Vasquez, p.11).
By 1910 the Mexican American community in Redlands had already grown substantially. The map below shows everyone listed as Mexican or Spanish in the 1910 census. Residents were scattered throughout much of the city, as there wasn't strict segregation at this early date. But we already see an emerging pattern of segregation with Mexican communities concentrating on the northside with three centers of the community. Join us on a tour of this early community growing in Redlands where many Mexican residents built their own homes, churches, fraternal organizations and businesses.
Federico & Velarde Families
The Federico family built their home at the foot of Redlands Heights by 1900. One of their other daughters, Mercedes Federico Velarde married Quentin Velarde and built a home next door to her family. Their daughter Tomasita Verlarde was the first Mexican woman to become a nurse in Redlands (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 11)
In the 1900 and 1910 census, some of these early families like the Federico's and Velarde's were listed as either Spanish or white in the census, indicating that they were not actively racialized as Mexican perhaps because of their skin color or residence in the increasingly Anglo space of south Redlands.
Stuart Street - along the Railroad Tracks
In the early 1900s, Redlands grew up along the train tracks. Mexican families emigrating to Redlands often established their first homes along the railroad tracks and near the packing houses on 3rd Street and Stuart.
Throughout the decades, as Mexican settler families continued to branch out to the greater Northside of Redlands to establish homes and extend communities, many core Mexican-American businesses and recreational spaces developed at the heart of 3rd Street and Stuart. Some families like the Ruiz family stayed in this neighborhood over the decades, buying more property as their families expanded.
Barrio Judeo
On the corner of Herald and Tribune, an alleyway coined “El Barrio Judeo” was a plot of land with 10-15 one-room houses that was owned by a Jewish woman named Florence Albert. She rented out the rooms to Mexican families, who who were looking to branch out from the railroad tracks along Stuart and have the opportunity to rent a home near the citrus groves that surrounded the city.
“There were several houses and it was on a dirt road going around and on the sides were houses, little old houses, but they were, you know, livable” (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, 22).
Many families like the Roque family moved from these rental houses down the street to buy homes in the surrounding neighborhood where they formed a tightly knit community.
Webster & Calhoun: Growing Community Around Protestant Churches
The Romero, Herrera, Enriquez, Zamarripa and Trevino families came to Redlands around 1901 to establish a Presbyterian church. Built in 1913, Iglesia El Divino Salvador (sometimes called La Capillita) became a center of a growing community on Webster, Calhoun and Lawton where many founders settled (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 30).
In later decades, this small neighborhood would also become home to the growing Catholic congregation of St. Mary's.
Family Ties
Extended families were the foundations for the close-knit communities that developed in Mexican American Redlands throughout the 1900s. Many individuals and families initially ventured north from Mexico to California seeking greater opportunities in railroads or the booming citrus industry. Over subsequent years brothers, cousins and aunts followed the same path north, building extensive family networks. Extended families helped to build each of the neighborhoods that formed the core of North Redlands' communities.
Ruiz children (left to right) Candida, Jose, Felix and Octavio on Carota the mule (Courtesy of Inland Mexican Heritage and Helen Cabral).
Ruiz Family - Settling along Stuart Ave
Augustin Ruiz's father had already been working in San Francisco when the earthquake hit in 1906. He returned to Zacualco, Jalisco Mexico to bring his son back to the United States to work.
Aurelia Reyes, one of Augustin Ruiz's younger daughters explained how they ended up in Redlands. They worked briefly on the railroads in Arizona, and then stopped to visit relatives in Yucaipa on their way back to San Francisco. Then as they left to hitchhike to San Francisco, "this man gave them a ride up to El Monte [and]... gave them a job picking walnuts." After they made a little money, they decided to stay in the area, coming back to settle in Redlands (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, 27). Augustin Ruiz became a mason who made irrigation pipes for the groves, and picked oranges seasonally (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 26).
They settled and built a home right at 509 Lawton, at the corner of Lawton and Stuart. The Ruiz children often rode their mule Carota around the growing agricultural town in the 1920s. You can explore this neighborhood and the houses clustered along the train tracks, where many Mexican residents first settled in Redlands.
Stuart Street, where the Ruiz extended family grew and built up the community. The Northside main recreational facilities, the House of Neighborly Service and the Floral or "Mexican" Plunge are marked here as footprints. This map is a work in progress, so please contact us to help us tell the story.
This Stuart Street neighborhood held most of the recreational facilities that were open to Mexican residents, many run by the Presbyterian House of Neighborly Services. As one of Augustin Ruiz's grand daughters Angeline Villaspondo explained, "We didn't hardly go that many places because we had our the House of Neighborly service there, we had skates, we had baseball, we had everything there" (Cabral & Villaspondo 2019, p. 18). By the 1930s the Mexican Plunge would be open nearby on Oriental Street as well.
The Ruiz family would stay and build more homes along Stuart, clustered around their grandfather's "Casa Grande" as the family grew over the next few decades. A granddaughter Angeline Villaspondo explained that by the 1950s the whole extended family moved to Second street into a series of houses the family built and owned. "I had another uncle there another uncle there..., and then my sister and her mother in law, they were next-door neighbors (Cabral & Villaspondo, p. 18-19)." Another grandchild, Loraine Valdez, estimated that the last family reunion had 700 Ruiz direct descendants and "90% of them still live in Redlands" (Reyes & Valdez Oral History, p. 7). Second Street was renamed Ruiz Street in honor of Augustin Ruiz's legacy in Redlands.
Work & Cultural Networks
Coyazo Family
The Coyazo’s moved to Redlands in 1911 to join Blas’ grandfather who already owned property and a watermelon patch in the growing Mexican community along Lawton Street (“Blas Coyazo Oral History,” 1). Fleeing the revolution and seeking a better life, Santos Coyazo (his mother) was pregnant and walked across the vast desert with her husband Dionicio and their two children, Consuelo and Sam.
Pictured left to right: Santos Coyazo, Consuelo, Blas, and Sam (Courtesy of Inland Empire Mexican Heritage & Sam Coyazo Jr.)
The family bought a home at 1128 Lawton Street, where Blas was born the following year in the rapidly growing Mexican community between Webster and Lawton. Click on the map to explore the Mexican residents in 1910 in this growing neighborhood.
By 1925, the Coyazo family was outgrowing their first home. So Blas’ big brother, Sam Coyazo built a back house behind his parents' house to fit his growing family. He lived here with his wife, Encarncion, their daughters Sally and Rita, and their son Frank. Sam Coyazo, became a foreman for Western Inland Growers, where he and his son Sam Jr. worked in the citrus industry for decades.
Sam Coyazo Sr. Foreman for Western Inland Growers (courtesy of Inland Mexican Heritage & Sam Coyazo Jr)
Sam Coyazo's son Sam Jr. explained that that crews mostly came from the same neighborhood. Sam Jr. described seeing "big trucks with ladders going up and down the streets picking up the pickers. They would go to the houses and honk." He remembered in 1938 when the orange grove owner Mr. Cook put a telephone in at his father's home so he could call crews out whenever smudging was necessary (to protect the orange crops from frost). "Mr. Cook would call my dad at night and he would pass the word on to the others. Our house was the only telephone within 7 blocks."
Redlands Mexican Drum and Bugle Corp
Families didn’t just build homes and neighborhoods – they built cultural institutions that brought music and life to the streets of the city’s North city. In their free time, Sam and Nick Coyazo played the guitar and got involved in a local band started by Leopoldo Gonzales in the late 1920s. Additional members of the band included Joe Herrera, Joe Douglas, and Tom and Nick Manzano. Here the band gathers outside of Tom Monzano's family home on Tribune street where they frequently practiced (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p.28-29).
The band was later known as the Redlands Drum and Bugle Corps. The group was accompanied by a 60-piece male marching band, including the Coyazo and Manzano families. They would perform in parades and compete in venues across Southern California like in this 1928 photo. Howard "Joe" Herrera explained that the group would often play at Mexican celebrations like Dos de Abril and Cinco de Mayo. He remembered, "We would come marching in playing Zacatecas or some other song like that and people would go crazy" (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 29).
Queen of the Court
Other Mexican festivals were frequently celebrated in Redlands early years. Here you see the Dieciseis de Septiembre queen and her court, celebrating Mexican Independence day. The Manzano brothers Encarnacion "Chon" (left) and Nick (right) join Queen Lucy Hernandez and Mary Macias (left) and Josefina Lara (right) and other children. The festival included a day long parade, music and dancing (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 85).
Religion in Community Life
Despite the early importance of Protestant churches in the development of the North side community, most of Mexican American Redlands was Catholic.
Our Lady of Mercy
In 1920 Monsignor Thomas Fitzgerald bought land and established the mission named Our Lady of Mercy Mexican School to serve the expanding Mexican community of the northside. The first St. Mary's Church grew out of this mission school.
Lupe Roque Yglesias remembered that "all the Mexican kids went to Our Lady of Mercy... We had the school and then later on Sundays, we would have mass. They would open the doors for the whole people" (Vasquez & Carpio p. 44).
Brick by Brick: Building A New St. Mary's
By the 1940s, the congregation had grown and needed a new home. Lupe Roque Yglecias, from one of the founding families church explained, "all the Mexican ladies got together. We needed a church. So they would all, Concha Viramontes and some other ladies, would go once a month to collect from every Spanish family. One dollar a month to build the church. So actually, the Mexican people helped come up with that church, then it became St. Mary's” (Vasquez & Carpio, p. 32)
In 1943 the new St. Mary’s Catholic Church opened. It had been constructed by Sam Coyazo’s father and grandfather and then moved to Columbia and Union from its original location on Calhoun. Young Sam Coyazo remembers when “it didn’t have a roof on it, it was just a skeleton” (“Sam Coyazo Oral History,” 18). It completion was timely, just finished before WWII created building restrictions.
St Mary's Church thrived as a center of community activity hosting first communions, weddings and a yearly Jamaica fundraiser that "drew hundreds of people from the barrio." The fiestas had games, music, food and street dances. Here you can see Rita Coyazo, Sally Coyazo and Cecila Coyazo posing before their performance at a 1943 Jamaica (Vasquez & Carpio 2012, p. 89).
Roque Family - Mexican Culture & Faith on Herald Street
The Roques originally came to Redlands in 1923 from Aguacalientes Mexico. Like many new arrivals, they briefly lived on Stuart Street near the Ruiz family (Lupe Roque Yglecias, 4). After living for awhile in the "little bungalows" of Barrio de Judeo, Lupe Roque Yglesias remembers buying the house where they grew up at 1113 Herald Street for $1000 (Yglesias & Castro Oral History, p. 23). Religion and Mexican culture made this community feel like home for generations growing up.
You can click on the homes and businesses around the Roque family home and the Vargas store on the corner of Herald and Western (Sanborn Map 1939).
Building a Sense of Home
The Roque's had first tried to move north to the US a few years before, going to Kansas to work on the railroads. But Dorotea Roque, found Kansas too cold and she "missed her tortillas." So after a few years back in Mexico, they moved to Redlands where Dorotea's sister Gavena Roque already lived (Margaret Robe Castro Oral History, p. 16-17). Here they would find and help build a thriving Mexican community where they could feel more at home.
Her daughter Margaret Roque Castro remembers growing up in the neighborhood, "When I was very little, I remember my mom working in her garden all the time and me along side of her making up little cards and little dolls and playing making little roads in the dirt. And my dad’s off picking oranges and my brothers, and my mother making their lunches and they would be off to work picking oranges and my mom would be home, al the time, just home doing the housework, cooking, washing clothes, and boiling the white ones outside” (p. 2).
Christmas Posadas
Religious life extended beyond the confines of the church and permeated into the broader community. Every Christmas in her neighborhood, Margaret Castro remembered posadas that would last 9 days.
"It was so exciting to me. They had these big old mangers. A big part of the living room was taken up by it… we’d walk across the street and they would carry candles, you know? Like when Joseph and Mary were looking for a place to stay when Jesus was being born… We’d go across the street with the candles and be singing and the ones inside the house would be some of the ladies and they’d sing back, ‘There is no place for you to stay,’ in the songs. So we’d walk back with our candles and we did this for nine days. (Vasquez & Carpio, 87-88).
Vargas Store Manger
The largest manger display spanned two rooms and was constructed by the Vargas family who lived and owned a little store on Herald street.
Margaret Castro remembered, how much she enjoyed the posadas. Neighbors would "give us cookies; they’d give us hot chocolate. On December 24th everybody went to Mass, midnight Mass. We went with my my mama, we’d walk and go to Mass. That stays in my mind, how I enjoyed it”
The Roque family set deep roots in Redlands, from Dorotea and Ygenio Roque (pictured here) building homes and communities that preserved their Mexican heritage.
The Roque family expanded in the 1930s and 40s as children grew, married and started their own families and as other members of their extended families continued to move north from Aguacalientes.
Here we see the next generation of Roques including Filipe and his wife Bicentia and their children on an outing in the 1930s.
Many members of the Roque family still lives in North Redlands today.
Building Businesses
Although many Mexican Americans were confined to manual labor jobs in the citrus instry, some Mexican families built businesses early in the 20th century. More businesses developed over the decades to serve the growing Mexican American community in North Redlands. 3rd street near Stuart became the center of many Mexican-American businesses ranging from grocery stores, restaurants, bars, pool halls, and even a tortilleria. This area created a space for Mexican-Americans to create thriving businesses even in a time of rampant discrimination. These businesses helped sustain the community and provided resources for families. See the development of some of these businesses over the decades on this tour of Mexican American businesses in Redlands across the decades.
Epimenio Guzman Blacksmith
Epimenio Guzman was running his Blacksmith shop at least by 1910 when it was first listed in the Redlands city directory. He ran the business for decades serving the needs of the expanding city. His niece remembered that he would take a piece of metal "heat it in the fire until it was fashioned into a shoe for the horse, which was waiting so patiently to be shod. Oh how the veins on his arms and massive hands would pop out, I thought that they were going to burst. (Vasquez & Carpio 2012 p. 64)."
Herrera Grocery
J.J. Herrera is listed in the 1910 Census as running the grocery story at the corner of Stuart and Orange Ave across from the Majestic Theater. He lived in the same building with his wife and four children who all migrated to the U.S. in 1900 from Mexico.
Sepulveda Grocery & Pool Hall
Simon Sepulveda moved from Mexico to Texas at age 14, and soon after he and his brother Carl moved to Redlands. He became a crew manager for C.M. Brown and Gold Banner, recruiting workers to work in the citrus orchards. He bought a house at 1102 Washington Street, married Mercedes Reyna and had nine children (Simon Sepulveda Oral History).
With the money Sepulveda earned as crew manager, he built a small dance hall, and later pool hall and grocery store on Third Street and Stuart (Carl Sepulveda Oral History). New arrivals to Redlands would have been able to get off the train, find housing in the nearby lodging houses and come to Simon Sepulveda's store and pool hall for recreation and to connect to work in the citrus orchards.
In 1936, the Billiard room was run by Jose Avila and later it developed into the Resbalon bar, which remained a center of community life (Redlands City Directory 1936). Carl Sepulveda said that people called it the Resbalon (the Slide) because people would sometimes get drunk and slip and fall on the hard wooden floors his uncle had built for dancing (Carl Sepulveda, p. 37).
Concepcion Romero
Concepcion and Ramon Romero were among the earliest settlers in Redlands, as his family helped found the Mexican Presbyterian church. Ester Vazquez recalls growing up with six other sisters living on Ohio Street or on the Fairbank Ranch, where her father was an irrigator and later the superintendent of the ranch, who everyone called "el Mayor."
Concha Romero was known around town as an excellent cook. She opened several small restaurants and tortillerias the late 30s-40s on 3rd Street and nearby on Colton and Lawton. Her daughter Eunice Gonzalez remembered that when the Bracero program was running, many of the men would skip the free food at Coney Camp and come eat at her mom's restaurant. "She was very in tune with these guys because she was from Mexico and she knew these guys were far from home. She used to treat them pretty nice" (Eunice Gonzalez Oral History, p. 18)
"She never stopped working really, she'd have a restaurant and sell food, you know. tamales and stuff, so she was always busy, she always had something to do ("Esther Vasquez Oral History," 14).
Tortilleria & Taco Shop
By the 1950s, Joe Jimemez ran a Tortilleria also on 3rd St in a shop attached to the home where he lived. By 1956, it moved up the block and expanded into a Jimenez Taco Shop & Tortilleria. This business would be displaced by the I-10 freeway which cut through this historic district soon after.
Vargas Family Grocery
The Vargas family ran a small grocery store near El Barrio Judeo and lived next door at 1153 Herald Street during the 1930s. Small stores like this were found throughout the north side, connecting neighbors and served as one of the foundations for close-knit communities to develop in Redlands.
Don Sabas/ Tommy Martinez's Store
Aurelia Reyes remembered Don Sabas' small store on Brockton and Calhoun, which he took over from its first Japanese owners sometime in the 1920s or 1930s. When WWII came, Don Sabas moved back to Mexico and sold the store to Tommy Martinez (Aurelia Reyes Oral History, p. 22). She remembered other small stores in the neighborhood, but they didn't stand out, "Tommy's was there a long time... It was Tommy's, it was that little store over there that really sold to you." Tommy ran the store for 40 years til his death in 1982, was president of the Mexican American political association, and was active in Democratic politics serving as the Redlands director of the Viva Kennedy campaign in 1960 (Redlands Daily Facts Jan 22 1982 p.3). Stores like these often provided comfort, community and lifelines to Mexican-Americans with the resources they needed. One of these small stores was even the only place that would cash checks for pickers.
Deeply Rooted
Graziano Gomez, a resident of Redlands, described the vibrant Mexican-American community as a “pretty close-knit community in the north side of town, where everyone knew everybody else” (Graziano Gomez Oral History, p. 6). Joe Herrera explained that people banded together in the neighborhood (Joe Hererra Oral History, p. 39). People felt intense loyalty to the community they built on the North side where extended families and community institutions knit together the community so everyone felt inter-connected in the early 20th century. When Redlands first Mexican American mayor, Oddie Martinez was asked in the 1970s why he didn’t move out of the “barrio,” he said: “Look, I’ve lived here most of my life, I was born right next door, and I’m going to die here. I’m happy here and…I have no desire to move.” ("Oddie Martinez Oral History," 17).
Mexican Americans built community from the ground up on the north side of the city, establishing families and communities with deep roots in the city that would shape the city throughout the 20th century to its present day.
Bibliography
Carpio, Genevieve. 2019. Collisions at the Crossroads: how Place and Mobility Make Race. Berkeley, UC Press.
Carpio, Genevieve. 2020. Tales from the Rebel Archive: History as a Subversive Practice at California's Margins. Southern CA Quarterly 102(1): 57-97.
Coyazo, Sam. Memories of the Citrus Industry. Meet with Robert Gonzalez, June 12, 1997. Inland Mexican Heritage Archive.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Blas Coyazo Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Carl Sepulveda Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San BernardinoValley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1995.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Felix Sepulveda Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “AureliaRuiz Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Esther Vasquez Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Graziano Gomez Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Joe Gonzalez Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San BernardinoValley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1995.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Joe Hererra Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Lupe Roque Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1999.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Oddie Martinez Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1994.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Prudence Gonzalez Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1995.
Gonzalez, Robert. “Sam Coyazo Oral History” in Citrus, Labor and Community in East San Bernardino Valley: An Oral History. A.K. Smiley Library, 1997.
Highlights of the History of St. Mary's Church. A K Smiley Library
Maier, Audrey. 2019. How Work Shaped the Citrus Landscape. https://scalar.usc.edu/works/audrey-citrus-project/index?path=index
Redlands 1931, 1936 City Directories A.K Smiley Library
Vasquez, Antonio Gonzalez, and Genevieve Carpio. Mexican Americans in Redlands. Arcadia Publishing, 2012.
