Fight for College Access: Part 3 – The Advocacy Plan

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,
Photo credit: TabletClass Math

The idea of raising academic standards for East Side Union High School District students was nothing new when I decided to pursue an A-G graduation policy in 2010. Fifteen years earlier, Superintendent Joe Coto instituted a policy that required all incoming freshmen to take Algebra 1 as part of the College Board’s Equity 2000 initiative to improve college readiness for underrepresented students. The College Board is a national organization focused on expanding access to higher education.

Despite teachers’ criticism of that policy, Coto asked the East Side Board of Trustees to consider adding Algebra 2 as a graduation requirement six years later in 2001. That appeared to be a bridge too far for skeptical teachers. One math teacher told the Mercury News in a February 26, 2001, article, “We could hold our graduation ceremonies in a phone booth,” if the Board approved such a policy. “You’re just setting them up to fail,” said another math teacher in the same article. Interestingly, the second teacher is currently President of the East Side Teachers Association (ESTA).

The suggestion was clear, and the sentiment was exactly what the ESTA president told me at breakfast nine years later: “Our kids can’t pass Algebra 2. You’re setting them up to fail.” Ultimately, the East Side Board did not add Algebra 2 to the list of graduation requirements in 2001. By the time I was prepared to unveil an A-G policy proposal in 2010, ESTA had been on the record for nearly a decade raising doubts about East Side students’ ability to pass Algebra 2.

I was perplexed at East Side teachers’ insistence that East Side kids could not achieve. While researching issues related to student achievement, I came across a January 9, 1999, Mercury News article quoting a California Association of Mexican-American Educators (AMEA) board member, who stated, “Too often, teachers judge students based on their families’ backgrounds and lower their goals.”  The AMEA is a statewide organization that advocates for equal academic access.

That was the smoking gun. Some East Side teachers just did not believe in our kids. Their viewpoint that certain students could not pass Algebra 2 had not changed in the eleven years between the 1999 Mercury News story and a potential East Side A-G vote. In fact, little had changed since I sat in my counselor’s office at James Lick High School three decades earlier. It was clear to me that an advocacy plan had to address teachers’ concerns.

As I prepared a plan, the realization set in that ESTA’s neutrality pledge would not overcome some teachers’ inherent biases and could potentially threaten the passage of an A-G policy. Relying on my experience as a corporate government relations executive, I developed a multi-pronged approach to securing the majority of votes necessary to approve an A-G policy.

Since California law prohibits school board members from discussing policy proposals in private with a majority of trustees, I could not directly lobby fellow trustees to secure the majority of votes. I had to earn the support of one trustee and hopefully collaborate on a path forward.

With that in mind, my advocacy plan centered on generating broad community support to encourage, or if necessary, coerce board members to support A-G by incorporating solutions to ESTA’s concerns. Three major groups of people could exert that kind of support, or if necessary, pressure on the Board of Trustees: (1) parents and students, (2) nonprofit educational support groups, (3) influential community members, and (4) the general public.

I would begin the campaign by introducing the A-G concept during my 2010 State of the District Address to the East Side education community, parents, and students. I planned to reach out to the Silicon Valley Education Foundation (SVEF) for advice and support. SVEF was a well-respected nonprofit organization that had been advocating for A-G requirements for years. Seeking endorsements from local community and political leaders and engaging with local media rounded out the advocacy plan.

On paper, the plan looked feasible. Executing it was another proposition entirely. By mid-January 2010, I was ready to go.

***

Next time: ESUHSD State of the District Address

Fight for College Access: Part 2 – Tension at Breakfast

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,
Photo Credit: Evergreen Inn and Pub

Our kids can’t pass Algebra 2. You’re setting them up to fail. 

~President, East Side Teachers Association

***

After sharing the idea of an A-G graduation requirement with the superintendent and several principals, the next, and perhaps most important, step was to meet with the president of the East Side Teachers Association (ESTA) to share my plans for student achievement and seek ESTA’s support for A-G. We met at a beloved breakfast spot in the Evergreen neighborhood within the ESUHSD boundaries. It was an old-fashioned cafe with booths lining the perimeter and tables occupying the center. The smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes filled the air.

Photo Credit: Evergreen In and Pub

Over breakfast, we chatted amiably and caught up on issues important to teachers. When I summarized my plans for an A-G graduation policy, the president sat silently, looking skeptical. The president asked pointed questions. Why? Does the district have the resources? Are other board members in support? The president was concerned that the ESTA board and membership would not likely support my proposal.

“In theory it’s a great idea, and we all want kids to be successful,” ESTA’s leader told the Mercury News. “But we don’t have room to add more chem labs. There’s no funding for new textbooks. How do we get junior highs to raise the bar to prepare students for ninth grade?” ESTA supported the last assertion with data. Forty percent of ninth-graders fail Algebra I, the first class in the college-prep math sequence.

By 2010, just a handful of school districts had policies that required students to take an A-G curriculum. San Jose Unified and Los Angeles Unified were leaders in that space. A-G was not on the radar for most school districts in California. The California Teachers Association (CTA) had not taken a position on the issue. The CTA focused its advocacy on higher teacher pay, smaller class size, more training support, and additional classroom resources. Calmly sipping coffee, I speculated CTA principles were driving the ESTA president’s reluctance about A-G.

With that in mind, I offered to partner with ESTA to advocate for and secure resources to provide teachers with the tools to help students succeed. The president persisted against the idea. The proposal would be hugely unpopular with teachers. The challenge for the president would be to prevent some ESTA leaders from publicly opposing the initiative. Understanding that subtle threat should have been a signal for me to stop pursuing an A-G policy proposal. 

Undeterred, I made a second attempt at persuasion by appealing to our commonalities. We were both ESUHSD students of color who went on to succeed in college and in our respective careers. “If we were able to do it, my rationale began …” ESTA’s president was unmoved. The third attempt was a combination of scornful sarcasm and facts. “The alternative is to do nothing,” I said. “We’ve got plenty of data to show that’s not working.” The tension in the restaurant booth was palpable. 

We stared each other down like a couple of prizefighters. I was unconvinced that ESTA’s “talking points” were the real reason why teachers would be so vehemently opposed to high standards. So I prodded with pointed questions. The president responded assuredly and bluntly, “Our kids can’t pass Algebra 2. You’re setting them up to fail.” I was shocked by the honesty, however misplaced in my opinion. Sincere sadness began to creep into my consciousness. How could we possibly expect kids to succeed if our teachers don’t expect them to be successful?

Ultimately, we agreed to disagree on the merits of the policy. I confidently stated that I would move forward with the proposal at the State of the District Address later that month “with or without ESTA’s support.” “If ESTA wanted to go on record opposing high standards,” I continued, “the court of public opinion will certainly weigh in.” Teachers in opposition to higher standards wouldn’t be a good look. ESTA’s president paused and assured me that the organization and membership would remain publicly neutral.  

Satisfied for the moment, I ended the meeting with a forced smile and a cordial handshake. Before meeting with the ESTA president, I anticipated an A-G slam dunk. After my unwise display of stubborn determination at breakfast, I knew that preparing for a full-court press was the only course of action. It was going to be a long road to secure passage of an A-G graduation policy. Phase 2 – developing a comprehensive advocacy strategy – would have to begin right away.

***

Next Week: The Advocacy Plan

Fight for College Access: Part 1

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,

EdTrust-West is a California-based research and advocacy group that seeks to improve racial equity in education. According to EdTrust, “Historically, educational tracking in California systematically diverted Latino students into vocational or non-college-prep courses.” Its analysis goes on to state, “this legacy persists today, leaving a disproportionate share of Latino students unprepared for University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU) admission.”

In 2010, the East Side Union High School District Board of Trustees sought to address the structurally racist practice of tracking Latino students into vocational curricula. The solution was creating a landmark policy that provided all students with access to the A-G curriculum, the series of courses required for UC and CSU admission. I served on that 2010 Board of Trustees.

ESEReport will share the East Side’s A-G story in a multi-part series, beginning with Part 1 today.

UC and CSU requirements for college eligibility

The idea of simply aligning the state’s minimum high school requirements with A-G requirements hasn’t gained steam because of the concern that it would result in fewer students graduating. ~Mayra Lara, Director, Ed Trust-West

***

Senior Portrait – James Lick High School – 1981

It was Spring 1981, my senior year in high school. I sat nervously in the counselor’s office at James Lick High School. The counselor was a portly Irish man in his late fifties with piercing blue-green eyes, thinning black hair slicked back so it looked as if it were stuck to his scalp, and a large head with thick jowls hanging from his face. Sitting behind his desk and talking in a booming voice, he looked and sounded intimidating as he opened my file and began to lay out my options. 

He told me that my poor study skills, a mediocre 2.72 grade point average, and an average SAT score left me with few options other than trade school, work, or maybe community college. I sat in front of his desk stunned, scared, and confused. I told him that my parents, friends, siblings, everyone, expected me to go to college. I quietly listened as he bluntly told me that community college was the only option.

The next day, my counselor called me into his office for another meeting. That time, my dad was there too. Dad never took a day off work. I stood motionless, trying to figure out what was going on. The counselor explained to me that my grade point average and SAT scores met the minimum requirements for acceptance at San Jose State University (SJSU). He was prepared to help me with the application process. Dad saved the day. 

Dad also proved the counselor wrong. I graduated from SJSU, had a productive career, served on the East Side Union High School District (ESUHSD) Board of Trustees, and was inducted into the ESUHSD Hall of Fame. 

President – ESUHSD – 2010

Twenty-nine years after the two meetings in the counselor’s office, I was President of the ESUHSD Board of Trustees. A group of students representing Californians for Justice (CFJ), “a statewide youth-powered organization fighting for racial justice,” requested to meet with me to advocate for a district A-G policy. I knew nothing about A-G. 

The group explained that it was the list of courses students needed to complete to be eligible for admission to the University of California (UC) and California State University (CSU. They went on to point out that not all students had access to the A-G curriculum, especially students of color. Graduating from an ESUHSD school didn’t guarantee college eligibility, the group informed me. The students advocated for an A-G graduation policy at ESUHSD. I was intrigued.

Memories of those two days in the counselor’s office in 1981 entered my consciousness for the first time in nearly three decades. Had it not been for Dad’s intervention with the counselor, my education and career path may have been different. Would I have been another Latino East Side kid who was denied a chance to pursue my dreams of going to college and a fulfilling career? That question inspired me to fight for an A-G graduation policy. I met the CFJ students again and shared my story. I was all in. A-G or bust! 

It was also the right and politically smart thing to do. Who would be against high standards for students, I reasoned. My tenure on the Board was going well. I led the effort to save after-school sports from the budget axe the year before. I made statewide news by taking a stand against a leading Republican gubernatorial candidate who disparaged an East Side school as part of his campaign against public education. Passing an A-G policy would all but secure my reelection bid later that fall.

Securing the education community’s support would be a slam dunk, I thought. When I met with the superintendent, he expressed unconditional support and offered to draft a policy proposal. Principals and administrators were positive and shared ideas on how to make a policy actually work. I planned to announce my A-G intentions during the annual State of the District Address as President of the Board of Trustees. 

An endorsement by the East Side Teachers Association (ESTA) was perhaps the most politically important stamp of approval to ensure passage of A-G. Trustees hold ESTA in high regard. Teachers are the most important and respected adults in an educational institution. For sitting Board members and potential candidates, an ESTA endorsement can make or break a campaign. To give the policy proposal its best chance at success, the teachers needed to be on board.

***

Next week: Meeting with ESTA’s president

Happy Donate Life Month!

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,

We educate, inspire, and activate the public to say yes to registering their decision to be an organ, eye, and tissue donor.

 ~ Mission Statement, Donate Life of America

***

If you haven’t already registered to be an organ donor, do it today here!

* * *

Sandra, Marisa, Erica, and I were streaming Modern Family the other night. It was a scene right out of the 1970s, when families gathered around the TV to watch their favorite shows. The smart TV screen is much bigger and clearer than my family’s 25-inch console in 1976, and there were no commercials. Otherwise, the vibe was the same. We were laughing out loud at every outrageous situation the show’s colorful characters created for themselves. 

Almost 16 years earlier, I couldn’t imagine that family scene unfolding. In 2010, we didn’t have such a large and sophisticated television, nor was streaming a regular part of our entertainment choices. Those aren’t the reasons for my lack of imagination. During that summer, I was in the ICU fighting for my life, uncertain if I would survive another day. God’s intervention, an amazing healthcare team, and a heart transplant in 2020 made our Modern Family binge night possible.

Before my health crisis, I wasn’t a registered organ donor. The thought never crossed my mind. I wasn’t alone. According to the Health Resources & Services Administration, about half of American adults are registered organ donors, about 170 million people. That sounds like a lot of people. On the downside, over 100,000 critically ill men, women, and children are waiting for an organ to save their lives. At least 13 people die every day as they wait.

In 2003, Donate Life of America, a national nonprofit organization, established and designated April as National Donate Life Month, “to honor deceased and living donors, encourage registration, and educate the public about the life-saving impact of donation.” Congress followed suit in 2024 by instituting an annual resolution recognizing and celebrating National Donate Life Month.

Since the 2010 health crisis and my 2020 heart transplant, organ donation is always on my mind. My post-transplant life has been full of faith, hope, love, activity, joy, sadness, anxiety, celebration, long walks, and extended periods of just living. All of these things were unimaginable a decade and a half ago. The very thought of living with a heart that wasn’t in my chest on the day I was born is profound. The fact that someone lost his life so I could live is humbling.

April is a special month for me. My transplant was on April 16. The nation honors organ donors and living donors and encourages everyone who’s able to register. I try to do my part, too. 

This year, Donate Life Month started two days early for me. On behalf of Transplant Recipients International Organization, I opened the 29th Annual Remember and Rejoice Ceremony before a standing-room-only St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. On April 13, as a volunteer for Donor Network West, an organ procurement organization, I participated in the County of Santa Clara Board of Supervisors’ proclamation for Donate Life Month ceremony with a fellow Kaiser Santa Clara heart transplant patient. Before Donate Life Month ended, I had the honor of addressing construction industry leaders at the 10th Annual Hard Hats with Heart fundraiser sponsored by the American Heart Association.

The majestic cathedral in Midtown Manhattan, the board of supervisors chambers, and the elegant Claremont Hotel in Berkeley are all special places. Places I could never have imagined being in as a kid, much less after the Summer of 2010. Wearing tailored suits while rubbing elbows with national transplant advocacy leaders, local elected officials, and industry executives is cool.  

Despite the excitement of public pageantry, the best part of Donate Life Month 2026 was sitting with Sandra, Marisa, and Erica, and watching Jay, Gloria, Manny, Mitchell, Cameron, Lily, Claire, Phil, Haley, Alex, and Luke bring us joy, laughter, and happiness with their crazy onscreen antics. Without a selfless human being who thought of spreading God’s love by sharing his organs for the sake of strangers after he passed through this life, I wouldn’t have had that special moment with my family.  

Thank you to my anonymous donor and his family. Your love of humankind has changed many lives. I encourage everyone who’s reading this blog who hasn’t already registered to be an organ donor to register today here!

Happy Donate Life Month!

Happy Idaho Day: Part 6

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,
Happy Idaho Day!

***

Congratulations, Mr. Garcia. You have a new heart! It’s working great. You have a Ferrari in your chest. ~Dr. John MacArthur, Stanford Hospital, April 16, 2020

*** 

I think about Idaho every day. If you don’t know Idaho, you can meet him by clicking here. He’s my ride-or-die partner. When I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do is thank God for Idaho. If I have to catch my breath while exercising, I think… uh-oh, is Idaho OK?

I want to talk about him all the time, too, but keep my thoughts to myself. I don’t want family and friends to feel like Jan Brady. “Idaho, Idaho, Idaho.”

Idaho came into my life (and my chest) six years ago today. I’ll never forget the surgeon’s big smile. I’ll never forget his words. “Congratulations, Mr. Garcia. You have a new heart! It’s working great. You have a Ferrari in your chest.” He was happy. I was confused. 

Confusion quickly morphed into depression, the deep kind. Idaho saved my life. I believed that I had ruined it. I could no longer provide for my family in the same way and at the same financial level. I would be a burden. I no longer provided value to others. I had no worth. Idaho kept ticking.

I was lonely. People were struggling with COVID. They didn’t have Idaho (or me!) on their minds. My phone stopped ringing. I sank deeper into the abyss of self-doubt. Despite my foul mood (actually, acting like an ass might be more accurate), Sandra, Marisa, and Erica cheered us on. Idaho kept ticking.

It was a rocky start. The daily follow-up appointments with the great post-transplant team at Kaiser Santa Clara soon became weekly, then monthly appointments. The numbers looked great. Idaho was strong. Although I wanted to give up, Idaho kept ticking.

The amazing nurse practitioner managing my case gave me the tools to keep Idaho healthy and strong. Taking immunosuppressant meds three times a day, walking at least 30 minutes every day, and eating a heart-healthy diet consumed my life. I still didn’t feel well. Idaho kept ticking. 

Sandra suggested psychotherapy. My macho Latino mind said, “I don’t think so.” The nurse practitioner agreed. My therapist was a godsend. She helped me recognize that I wasn’t a failure. I wasn’t worthless. I wasn’t a burden. It took many psychology exercises and a couple of years to get to that point. Idaho kept ticking.

As my mind cleared, I could feel Idaho’s strength and energy. My walks soon became hikes on hilly trails. With an uncluttered mind, I turned to things I love doing. Reading, writing, and thinking occupied my days. I was working again, but not getting paid. And that was ok. Idaho kept ticking.

Working and not getting paid? What a novel thought! That didn’t register in my 48 Viewmont Avenue mind. More therapy. More psych exercises. I started having fun. Idaho and I had a miraculous story. We could give people hope by sharing it with the world. As my thoughts swirled with ideas, Idaho kept ticking.

We published Summer in the Waiting Room: Faith ∙ Hope ∙ Love on the 12th anniversary of the heart attack that started my heart failure journey. The phone started ringing again. “Would you like to travel to Washington, D.C. to advocate for transplant patients?” asked the person on the other line. Idaho kept ticking.

We walked up and down Capitol Hill, sharing our story. Idaho performed like a champ. The phone kept ringing. Speaking to a group of sales execs in Seattle, we got a standing “O.” We shared our story virtually with groups in Connecticut, Michigan, and Southern California. Last month, we shared our story with 2,400 people – friends and families of organ donors – at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Midtown Manhattan. This East Side Catholic boy still can’t wrap my mind around that. Idaho kept ticking. 

Spending time with Sandra, Marisa, and Erica became more meaningful as I began to accept that being the breadwinner didn’t define me as a husband or a father. Sandra and I have gone on getaways to Philadelphia, Seattle, and Cancun. We often have dinner together as I listen to the school superintendent, political consultant, and high school art teacher regale me with stories about their challenging, yet rewarding, days. Idaho kept ticking.

Is life now perfect? Nope. Not by a long shot. I’m a worrier. I still worry. I still have this ingrained belief that I have to do more. I still wonder how long Idaho will keep me going. The chaos in our world makes me anxious. As gas and grocery prices continue to skyrocket, money again is seeping into my thoughts. Idaho keeps ticking.

The good news is that my 6th annual post-transplant evaluation showed that Idaho is still working like a Ferrari. Taking care of a transplanted organ requires discipline, commitment, and hard work. The better news is that Sandra, Marisa, and Erica still give me hope and purpose to keep soldiering on. The best news is that Idaho is still ticking!

Happy 6th Heartiversary, my friend!

Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance – Chapter 5

Miscellaneous Posts

L-R Clockwise: Spanish Language Radio Announcers, State Assembly Candidate Ernest F. Abeytia, Market Street Shopping, Las Hermanas Montoya and Pérez Prado at the Palomar Ballroom (photos courtesy of El Excéntrico Magazine, MLK/SJSU Library, and La Raza Historical Society of Silicon Valley)

Chapter 5

The Rise and Fall of Los Excéntricos

We aim to improve with every edition so that it is a dignified reflection of our community.

~First edition of El Excéntrico, April 1949

***

The Palomar Ballroom. San José, California. Circa early-1950s. Dámaso Pérez Prado and his Orchestra were belting out Mambo #5, the famous smash hit that took the United States by storm. The Cuban-born bandleader from México City, who popularized the mambo dance craze, loved playing the Palomar Ballroom when he swung through San José.

His three singers, Las Hermanas Montoya, were San José natives. The club’s management treated him like royalty, and San José’s Mexican community and Mexicans from throughout the Bay Area packed the house and the dance floor.

The city built The Palomar Ballroom in 1946 on the northeast corner of Notre Dame Avenue and Carlysle Street in downtown San José, two blocks west of the present-day San Pedro Square. It was the first significant building constructed in the city after World War II.

Built for the Big Band Era, the ballroom hosted major musical acts like Ray Charles and Fats Domino. Ethnic Mexican promoters also attracted acts from México and Latin America, including Dámaso Pérez Prado and the brightest Mexican mariachi stars of the day. Historians consider it the first integrated dance hall in San José.

The building changed with the times, hosting rock and roll and rock acts, and a discotheque, from the 1960s through the late 1990s. Eventually, the last occupant of the original Palomar Ballroom building closed for good in 2002.

According to a city report, the structure was eligible for the California Register of Historic Resources and the National Register of Historic Places in part for “the building’s role in the preservation of the diverse social and cultural traditions of the Latino community in Santa Clara Valley for approximately 50 years.”

Despite the historic value of the original Palomar, the grand ballroom building was demolished in 2005 to make way for a high-rise residential development. As a consolation, the city required the developer to incorporate visual displays of the building’s history. It recommended that the Historic Landmarks Commission obtain information “from conducting oral histories with members of the Chicano community.”

The high-rise development, however, was some 50 years into the unknown future for the revelers dancing to Dámaso Pérez Prado and his Orchestra in the Palomar Ballroom. The orchestra included up to 14 musicians playing trumpets, saxophones, trombones, a drum set, timbales, congas, and a stand-up bass.

The energetic music filled the high-ceilinged, cavernous room. Women dressed in evening gowns, cocktail dresses, high-heeled shoes, and white or cream-colored elbow-length gloves. Men wore neatly pressed dark suits, crisp white dress shirts, colorful ties, and shoes polished until they could see their reflections when looking down.

Couples danced the mambo cheek to cheek as they stepped back and forth, and side to side, while sensually swiveling their hips to intoxicating rhythms. Gentlemen flipped open shiny lighters to light cigarettes for themselves and their dates. Cigarette smoke hovered just slightly above the dance floor. With cocktails in hand, those not dancing chatted, laughed, and enjoyed a lovely evening out on the town.

San José’s Mexican American middle class had arrived.

***

Most ethnic Mexicans still labored in backbreaking agricultural work. Although shunned from front-office work and government jobs, Mexican Americans began to find employment opportunities in the fast-growing valley. As La Colonia expanded and its residents remained unwelcome in other parts of town, ethnic Mexican entrepreneurs emerged to provide daily services.

The community included doctors, lawyers, hair salons, barbers, photo studios, grocers, auto shops, tax preparers, clothing shops, and much more. When Ford Motor Company opened an assembly plant in the neighboring town of Milpitas in 1955, ethnic Mexicans sought out those potentially well-paying union jobs.

With resilience and perseverance, ethnic Mexicans responded to the stinging rejection of the powers that be by developing La Colonia into a self-sufficient community that thrived with businesses of their own. The establishments lining Market Street sold American goods and Mexican imports. The Balconades, the Rainbow Ballroom, and the Majestic competed with the Palomar to host local talent and major musical acts from México.

Radio programs featured personalities that read the news in Spanish and played the latest popular Latin music, and three theaters showed first-run movies from México. Ethnic Mexicans from throughout the Bay Area went to La Colonia for shopping and entertainment. The Market Street corridor was a vibrant and bustling example of ethnic Mexican entrepreneurship, work ethic, and family-centered community.

The community also had its own press outlets. Perhaps the most influential of these was El Excéntrico, a small 5 ½ by 8 ¾-inch magazine that published 30 to 40 pages each month. The magazine’s employees distributed it to businesses in La Colonia, east San José, and, ultimately, across the greater Bay Area. The magazine shared local news, culture, fashion trends, politics, and society gossip in English and Spanish.

Beginning in the early 1950s, Mexican Americans had sought to participate in politics to ensure that local government met community needs and addressed concerns. The Community Services Organization, a grassroots advocacy group based in Los Angeles, organized in Sal Si Puedes and La Colonia to register voters. The organization sought to replicate its success in electing the first Mexican American to the Los Angeles City Council in 1947.

Three years later, a grocery store owner named Charles Esparza and attorney Manny Gomez filed their intent to run for the San José City Council. On the East Side, reports indicated that Republican poll watchers harassed voters by questioning their citizenship and legal voter registration cards. Mainstream candidates soundly defeated Esparza and Gomez in the April primary election.

Despite the efforts of the Mexican American middle class to gain access to the public decision-making table, subsequent public policy actions by the San José City Council during the 1960s and 1970s would literally cause the “demolition” of La Colonia and its dynamic business district.

Hundreds of ethnic Mexican families were displaced to make room for San José’s first urban renewal project. The Park Center Plaza, 3.8 million square feet of commercial and office space (directly across the street from the present-day Plaza de César Chávez), broke ground in July 1968.

 Other buildings quickly followed. The main library on San Carlos Street in 1970 and the Center for Performing Arts in 1972. Major San José cultural venues like the Tech Museum of Innovation and the Children’s Discovery Museum, both valuable community assets, sit on the ashes of a once-thriving ethnic Mexican community.

Through it all, Mexican Americans endured like the ever-present avena barbata swaying in the howling winds of a winter storm. When the wind and rain stopped, San José’s ethnic Mexican community stood tall like the slender wild oak that covered the east foothills, ready to face the last two decades of the 20th century.

***

Note: Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance is coming SOON!

                                   

Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance – Chapter 4

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,

Photos L-R Clockwise: Avena Barbata, Eastern Santa Clara Valley Hills, Book Cover, New Almaden Mines ca. 1863 (image courtesy of westernmininghistory.com)

***

Chapter 4

Avena Barbata

This period of trial led to what may have been the earliest ethnic Mexican-organized labor activities in U.S. history.

~ Stephen J. Pitti, Author, The Devil in Silicon Valley

***

During the rainy season, avena barbata, also known as slender wild oat, is one of the natural grasses that blanket the green hillsides on the eastern slope of Santa Clara Valley. Before industrialization and the growth of Silicon Valley, this species of tall grasses swayed in the wind on hillsides and the valley floor as well.

During the dry season, the plant’s seeds fall to the ground, disappear into the soil, and become dormant. Some seeds can remain underground for three years before sprouting after the rains, growing to a height of up to four feet.

Slender wild oats are not native to the Santa Clara Valley or California. They originate from Asia and the Mediterranean Basin. According to botanists, the strain found in the Santa Clara Valley has the same genetic makeup as avena barbata, native to southwestern Spain.

The grass is also common in the Mexican states of Sonora and Sinaloa. Scientists speculate that Mexican settlers and ranchers introduced avena barbata to the valley in the 18th and 19th centuries to feed cattle and other livestock.

Green florets hang on the tips of a few branches that hold the seeds of the slim grass. When the wind flows through a field of avena barbata, unharvested seeds of the wild grass fly wide and far, settling into the soil below.

Botanists consider it an invasive species that outcompetes native grasses in the valley. Over the course of nearly 250 years, the slender wild oat has become more common in the Santa Clara Valley than native species.

Today, the eastern hillsides turn a lush green soon after a heavy rain. Although modern-day Silicon Valley is an endless landscape of asphalt, cement, and squat tilt-up buildings that serve the high-tech industry, avena barbata is everywhere.

During the spring, one can see tall grass on median strips, unkempt yards peeking through cyclone fences, and on open lots. Today, hiking trails in the Eastern hills cut through fields of avena barbata, gently undulating in a light springtime breeze.

The Mexicans who founded San José, along with the avena barbata they brought for the journey, laid the foundation for the settlement during its first 73 years. The resilient pobladores (Mexican settlers) and their descendants built a community, governed themselves, and survived floods, drought, and conflicts with Americans who squatted on their land.

Just as slender wild oats disappear from the valley floor every summer, ethnic Mexicans vanished from 20th-century published historical works about San Jose. Much like how slender wild oat seeds nourish the soil, generating tall strands of green grass after the rain, ethnic Mexicans sustained the valley’s development as ranch hands, agricultural workers, and miners.

During the 1820s, Secundino Robles, a Mexican American landowner born in Santa Cruz, was the first non-Ohlone to see cinnabar embedded in the hillside soil. Cinnabar is a bright reddish-orange mineral that the Ohlone used for thousands of years as paint for ceremonial adornments.

During a visit to the Santa Clara Valley in 1845, Captain Andrés Castillero, a military officer from México City and a trained geologist, chemist, and metallurgist, inspected samples of the red rocks at Mission Santa Clara.

His experiments confirmed that the stones were cinnabar, a mercury-based mineral found in quicksilver mines. Quicksilver, another name for mercury, is a chemical used by miners to extract gold from rocks. Castillero formed a mining company named Santa Clara.

Castillero did not benefit from the Gold Rush, which brought riches to mine owners. He returned to México in 1847 to seek funding to expand his operations, and the Mexican government called him to duty during the 1846-48 U.S. War with México.

Castillero ultimately sold the Santa Clara mine. The new owner, the Quicksilver Mining Company, was a Pennsylvania-based organization that dominated the global mercury market. It named the location Cinnabar Hill and renamed the company New Almaden Mines.

Not long after the Quicksilver Mining Company arrived on Cinnabar Hill, structural racism again reared its ugly head in Santa Clara Valley. Company policies ensured that the miners were financially beholden to the Quicksilver Mining Company.

Immediately, the Company began charging residents $5 per month to rent the houses miners had built and occupied. The new owners replaced the general store with a company store that sold food at a 75% markup.

Inspired by the Mexican victory over French invaders in Puebla, Mexico, on May 5, 1862, miners began organizing and sharing ideas to resist the Company’s policies. In late 1864, miners and their families began protesting management.

In his groundbreaking book, A Devil in Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans, Yale historian Stephen Pitti wrote, “This period of trial led to what may have been the earliest ethnic Mexican–organized labor activities in U.S. history.”

Even in the face of withering structural racism, the fight on Cinnabar Hill demonstrated the resiliency and perseverance of ethnic Mexicans in San José. Against all odds, the courageous miners stood in solidarity to defend their families and honor, as hardworking contributors to the economy that sustained San José and the surrounding area.

***

Note: La Raza Historical Society Publications anticipates that Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance will be available on March 21, 2026.

Stay tuned!

Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance – Part 2

Miscellaneous Posts, , ,

Part 2: The Dream

***

Some in the community insisted that it be called the Latino Heritage Center. And we were very adamant about emphasizing Mexican heritage and culture.

~Blanca Alvarado, Vice Mayor, City of San José

***

In the September 5, 1952, issue of El Excéntrico, the president of the Comisión Honorífica Mexicana announced that its general assembly voted on July 20th of the same year to approve a project to establish the La Casa del Mexicano, a community and cultural center that included a large meeting hall and offices for the Comisión. He proposed convening a committee of honest, selfless community leaders, independent of the Comisión, to plan and design the center.

Money raised during the Comisión’s annual Cinco de Mayo and September 16th celebrations would fund the project. The article also called for broad support from the ethnic Mexican community to ensure it had its own space for social events and festivals. Opposition began to develop before the July 20th general assembly vote.

José Alvarado, a popular Spanish-language radio disc jockey and former president of the Comisión Honorífica Mexicana, argued that funds for the Casa del Mexicano project would siphon money away from a college scholarship program for Mexican American students already approved by the Comisión.

According to a July 19, 1952, San José Mercury News article, “Alvarado charged that while the scholarship program promoted better American citizenship, activities centered around the proposed clubhouse would tend to increase loyalties to México, rather than the United States.”

Although Alvarado was a native of México and served on the Comisión board, he believed that the future of the ethnic Mexican community in San José depended on building capacity in the United States. In an April 5, 1953, El Excéntrico opinion piece, Alvarado wrote in Spanish, “Although we love our traditions, we refuse to live in the past. This country is our home, and without a doubt, we want to be considered part of the local community.”

The Comisión Honorífica Mexicana general assembly unanimously voted to fund the scholarship program and the Casa del Mexicano project. A year later, the Comisión purchased property in La Colonia near the Del Monte cannery. The house became the Comisión’s headquarters, used for meetings and small gatherings.

The organization could not raise the necessary funds to build a large meeting hall and community center for public events as envisioned. By the mid-1960s, the Comisión sold the property to make way for a segment of Interstate 280 that expanded the demolition of La Colonia started by San José’s Redevelopment Agency earlier in the decade.

The Comisión’s dream of building a gathering space for the ethnic Mexican community remained of interest, even as cars zipped along I-280 on the land that once housed the Casa del Mexicano. In his annual message to the community, published in the December 5, 1967, issue of El Excéntrico, Comisión Honorífica Mexicana President Daniel Saldaña presented the Centro Cultural Mexicano (Mexican Cultural Center) project, “probably the boldest plan” ever announced by the Comisión.

The proposed 49-acre development would be an “authentically Mexican village” that included a large central kiosk, a church built in the original mission style, offices, art studios, and classroom space for teaching Mexican art, dance, and music. It is unlikely that the project progressed beyond the proposal stage, as described in El Excéntrico. There is no historical record of subsequent discussions.

Six years later, a group of business leaders founded the Mexican American Chamber of Commerce (MACC), “to improve the social, cultural, economic, and political position of ethnic Mexicans in San José.” The organization grew quickly and soon earned the trust of the community, city leaders, and established downtown business groups. The MACC was determined to develop a “Mexican Village” in downtown San José that replicated the thriving Market Street business corridor of two decades earlier, but with Mexican architecture and themes.

A Mexican entrepreneur first proposed a Los Angeles-style “Olvera Street” in San José in the mid-1950s, but city officials dismissed the idea. The MACC’s proposal would include space for arts and entertainment. By the mid-1970s, some city leaders were open to the concept. The proposal could potentially revitalize a dying downtown. Despite early momentum for the MACC project, the city council pressed ahead with its plan to revitalize downtown San José by displacing the ethnic Mexican community and investing heavily in redevelopment.

Unlike San Antonio, Texas, which recognizes, celebrates, and embraces its Mexican American roots and culture, San José’s leaders refused to acknowledge the city’s rich Mexican history and traditions. San Diego and Los Angeles preserved their original Pueblo sites and now celebrate them as tourist attractions. In their quixotic quest to revive downtown by throwing Redevelopment funds toward creating a modern version of a downtown lifestyle that never existed, city leaders failed to capitalize on a cultural heritage that had survived and thrived in the valley for more than two centuries.

For the better part of four decades, institutional roadblocks, financial challenges, and community divisions hampered the dream of creating a space where the city’s Mexican cultural heritage is acknowledged and celebrated. The dawn of the 1980s would bring renewed hope and previously unattainable opportunities toward achieving that dream.

***

Note: Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance will be available in mid-March 2026. Stay tuned for more details.

Mexican Heritage Plaza: Part 1

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,
Map of the original El Pueblo de San José site (Courtesy of SJSU King Library)

Part 1

The Mexicans

November 29, 1777 ~ November 3, 1980

When Neve (Governor of Alta California, New Spain) reported to the viceroy that the Guadalupe area would make an excellent town site, he requested 40 to 60 colonists, all experienced Mexican farmers with families, be recruited.

~Edwin A. Beilharz, Santa Clara University Professor and Author, San José, California’s First City, 1980

* * *

San José, California, has existed as an organized governmental pueblo, town, or city for 248 years. Despite being the first civil settlement in California, San José has few published historical works. Fredric Hall, an obscure attorney and amateur historian, conducted extensive documentary research and kept a diary of his youth in San José to write The History of San José and Surroundings, published in 1871.

A century later, Santa Clara University history professor Edwin A. Beilharz and Donald O. Demers published a coffee-table book titled San José, California’s First City as part of a series on local history from Continental Heritage Press. Beilharz and Demers acknowledge the presence of Mexicans in San José’s history but offer no in-depth analysis of its implications for the city’s development.

During that same period, an amateur historian named Clyde Arbuckle was encouraged by a fellow history buff to write the “definitive” History of San José. When Arbuckle published the book in 1985, the foreword stated, “In these pages we will relive the founding and emergence of our city as recounted by one who knows it better than any other.”

 It’s important to note that Arbuckle was not an academically educated or trained historian. In fact, he dropped out of high school at 15 to work as a laborer in a printing shop and ultimately spent 25 years as a delivery driver for the firm. He took a few history classes at night school and became quite the history buff. In 1945, the City of San José named him the official City Historian, most likely because he had a passion for the community’s past.

Nevertheless, Arbuckle’s book is detailed and well-researched. While the statement in the book’s foreword that Arbuckle knew the city’s history “better than any other” may have been accurate, the History of San José author only tells part of the story. Arbuckle makes no mention of the Mexican presence or contributions to San José’s development. His retelling of the Pueblo’s founding in 1777 occupies only four paragraphs in a book spanning 535 pages.

Aside from an odd statement asserting that the settlers “were not the best material in the world for their task,” Arbuckle provides no historical analysis at all, especially with respect to the people who settled on the banks of the Guadalupe River. How Arbuckle concluded that the settlers “were not the best material” is anyone’s guess.

In an April 15, 1778, letter to superiors, Felipe de Neve, Governor of Alta California, New Spain, wrote that he assigned “nine soldiers with farming experience” to settle El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe. Fredric Hall’s 1871 book describes the settlers as “skilled in agriculture.” Those accounts confirm that the settlers were the best material for developing an agricultural community.

Whatever the reason for Arbuckle’s omission of the Mexican experience in San José, his manuscript does not provide a comprehensive or definitive history of the city and perpetuates the false narrative that Spaniards founded the pueblo.

It wasn’t until 2003, when Yale historian Stephen J. Pitti published The Devil in Silicon Valley, that historical works about San José correctly identified the Pueblo’s founders as “ethnic Mexicans.” In 2025, San José State University historian Gregorio Mora-Torres wrote a comprehensive account of what he calls the ethnic Mexican experience in San José.

The facts, as chronicled by Beilharz, Pitti, and Mora-Torres, are that each person in the small band of 66 pobladores (settlers) who pitched camp along the Guadalupe River was born in México, including the “Spanish” army captain José Joaquín Moraga, who led the expedition. He was born at the Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi in Sonora, México (now in modern-day Arizona).

Within a few years, San José’s settlers were producing enough food to feed the military presidios in Monterey and San Francisco. By the mid-1780s, the pueblo’s leaders established a thriving community. Although still under the King of Spain’s royal authority, the Mexican settlers produced abundant crops. They established a “town council” in San José, launching a form of self-government for the faraway outpost settled by people from Sonora and Sinaloa, México.

In 1846, U.S. troops invaded México in a war of conquest. On the eve of the war, four out of every five people living in the Pueblo were Mexican. Through intermarriage and legal sleight of hand after the 1846-48 American War with México, Mexicans began to lose their land and influence in San José gradually.

By the 1880 U.S. census, Mexicans made up only 6% of the town’s population. This number is likely inaccurate as American officials probably undercounted Mexicans. Nonetheless, the Mexican population decreased significantly in the three decades following American statehood.

While ethnic Mexicans seemed to disappear from the written annals and minds of the white business and ruling class in San José, they continued to thrive and contribute to the city’s development. Over 1,000 miners from Sonora, México, lived and worked in the quicksilver mines in the southern hillsides known as the misnamed Spanishtown. Immigrants from México and native-born descendants of the founders led cattle drives, cultivated crops, picked fruit, and worked in the growing canning industry, which was the valley’s economic engine.

By the mid-20th century, a burgeoning ethnic Mexican middle class had emerged. The Mexican neighborhoods west of downtown thrived, with businesses lining Market Street. Dance halls hosted local talent and major musical acts from México. Radio programs featured personalities that read the news in Spanish and played the latest popular Latin music.

During the late 1960s, Mexican and Mexican American business and community leaders were poised to take civic leadership roles in a town that their ancestors had founded almost 200 years earlier.

***

Note: Stay tuned for more information about the release of Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance

Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance

Miscellaneous Posts, , , ,
Cover design and artwork by Erica García — https://proyectoxtra.com/

My new book is titled Mexican Heritage Plaza: A Symbol of Resilience and Perseverance. La Raza Historical Society Publications is scheduled to release the book in Spring 2026. The prologue is reprinted below.

***

Prologue

September 9, 1999, was a beautiful day in San José, California. A large crowd gathered for the dedication of the Mexican Heritage Plaza, the city’s most ambitious neighborhood cultural arts project. Although the first day of autumn was less than two weeks away, clear skies, a light breeze, and a comfortably warm 74 degrees blanketed the plaza. There was a sense of excitement, accomplishment, and relief that this day had finally come. It was as if the gods conspired to make a perfect day for the much-anticipated consecration of a living and breathing monument to the city’s Mexican origins. 

When the 1,000 or so people settled into their seats, Santa Clara County Supervisor Blanca Alvarado stood and walked up the few steps onto the stage to address the gathering. The audience included San José’s political class, community activists, neighborhood leaders, and other guests. When she approached the podium, Alvarado opened her comments with equal parts passion and eloquence:

“To be here with you at this official dedication is to stand in awe and wonder at what we have accomplished in the spirit of community. To stand here is to feel free at last from the stinging rejection that so many of us have felt for being Mexican-American. To be able to speak our language and to experience our cultura in its many forms is to acclaim our right to be.”

With that opening flourish, Alvarado brought to life recognition of the city’s Mexican roots, which white Americans had dismissed since their arrival in the late 1840s.

***

The first human beings to occupy the land that is now San José, California, were the Ohlone people. They descended from nomads who migrated across a land bridge that connected modern-day Asia to North America in search of food and game about 15,000 to 30,000 years ago. Archeologists believe that descendants of those wanderers settled in what is now the Santa Clara Valley 4,000 to 10,000 years ago. 

In January 1777, Franciscan friars established the first European settlement in the valley by founding Mission Santa Clara de Asis. Eleven months later, a group of settlers representing the Spanish king founded El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe just east of the river that dissected the two communities. Although they settled on the eastern bank of the Guadalupe River as subjects of Spain and under the orders of the Spanish government, all 66 people who established the camp were born in modern-day Mexico. Contrary to assertions by 20th-century San José historians and those who claim to be descendants of the settlers, members of the 1777 group were most likely not culturally Spanish. They were ethnically Mexican.

Since its birth as a European-style civil settlement, San José has been a community with a rich Mexican history. From its founding in 1777 to 1822, the town was a colony of the Spanish Crown. The Mexican Empire and its successive governments ruled the people of San José from 1822 until the United States acquired the pueblo as spoils of war in 1848. With the influx of Americans traveling to California in search of fame and fortune during the Gold Rush of 1849, San José began its slow ascent as an industrial city. First, with quicksilver mining in the Almaden Hills, and later, with the robust canning business tied to the agricultural boom that created the Valley of Heart’s Delight. 

During that time, Mexicans worked the mines, cultivated grain and vegetables in the fields, and harvested the fruit trees that blanketed the valley floor and hillsides. Civic leaders and 20th-century San José chroniclers have spent nearly two centuries trying to erase that history. Through the 20th century, the handful of scribes who wrote about San José’s history ignored the ethnic Mexican experience. While historians, professional and otherwise, erased ethnic Mexicans from published historical works, the Mexican community of San José continued to thrive.

Beginning in the early 1950s, ethnic Mexicans unsuccessfully attempted to establish a cultural center to celebrate the city’s Mexican birthright. Proposals from the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s faced institutional roadblocks, financial challenges, and community divisions. Ultimately, none of these projects progressed beyond the idea phase. Despite efforts by generations of San José’s ruling class to marginalize the contributions of ethnic Mexicans to the city’s development, a group of Mexican American civic leaders overcame seemingly impossible odds in the 1990s to build a state-of-the-art Mexican cultural center that would become a symbol of Mexican American resilience and perseverance.