Mexican-American History in Downtown San Jose

Finals is coming up quickly - my last finals season as an undergrad, and in less than three weeks I'll have graduated! Yikes! - and because of this I have been absolutely swamped with schoolwork. Thus, this blog proooobably won't update again until after finals. (I'm still in shock that they're already here, to be perfectly honest.) I do have ideas for future blog entries, though, including one about a recent trip to Ainsley House, so hopefully I won't take too long to write that one up!

Luckily for me, at least one school assignment translates rather well to blog format. Because recently for a history class, I was required to take a self-guided walking tour through downtown San Jose and visit spots picked by my professor that related to local Mexican-American heritage. (And please do excuse the dorky selfies - believe it or not, they actually were part of the assignment.)

Now, one thing I'm looking forward to immensely about New York is moving to a place with so much history, but that doesn't mean San Jose is without its own equally fascinating history! The Mexican and Spanish presences here go back to the 1770s, back when New York was still paying taxes to King George III. And so I actually was pretty excited about this assignment, even if it is not my own culture. Hopefully at least one person out there is just as excited about what I discovered...

Stop #1: The Paseo de San Antonio

The first stop on the historic Mexican Heritage walking tour of downtown San Jose was the sayings embedded all along Paseo de San Antonio, relating to local Mexican American hero Ernesto Galarza. The quotes along the walkway seem to have been quotes about Galarza and about the way he helped the local Mexican community in their civil rights struggle. For example, one quote read “I remember him in front of the classroom, raising his hands and speaking passionately to us about the injustices of the system.” Another read, “He treated us all as equals. He was one of our heroes. His most cherished dream was that someday all people would be the beneficiaries of democracy, freedom, and justice.” Many of the quotes were repeated twice, once in English and once in Spanish.

If you've never heard of him, he was really a fascinating man. Galarza was a Mexican immigrant who was the first Mexican to earn a doctorate from freakin' Columbia - the same school Alexander Hamilton went to, and my dream grad school! He settled in San Jose after World War II and got involved in the local struggle for Mexican American rights. He helped to organise the local Mexican community into the National Farm Labour Union (NFLU), feeling that the local agricultural jobs for Mexicans were taking advantage of them with low wages and harsh working conditions. Galarza “believed that ethnic Mexicans needed to forge ties with California labour unions to advance their demands.” He continued his work with unions such as the NFLU until 1960, and even after that he did many things for the San Jose Mexican American community. Though it took time for his work with these unions to have much effect at all, the fact that Galarza worked so hard for so many years to help the working Mexican community of San Jose is more than enough reason for the city of San Jose to have honoured him with these public art installations.

Stop #2: The Peralta Adobe

The Peralta Adobe (now on the grounds of San Pedro Square Market - a favourite place of mine in this city) is the oldest structure in downtown San Jose, and the last tangible remnant of the Spanish Colonial settlement known as el Pueblo de San Jose. It was built in 1797 during the Spanish Colonial era, the same year that Mission San Jose was established up in Fremont. It's named after Luís María Peralta, a sergeant in the Spanish army and the pueblo's most famous resident, but it was actually built by one of the Pueblo de San Jose's founders, Miguel Gonzalez. It has been recognised as a landmark due to its Spanish Colonial architectural style - it's San Jose City Landmark #1, California State Historic Landmark #866, and on the National Register of Historic Places. Not bad for a humble little adobe!

Stop #3: Fallon House

Directly across the street from the site of the Peralta Adobe is a later building called Fallon House, the home of Thomas Fallon. He is honoured as an Anglo-American hero, but is not considered so heroic by the Mexican population, due to his role on the American side of the Mexican-American War. (I have no idea how "heroic" the guy was or was not.) The house itself was built by Fallon in 1854. He was, for better or for worse, one of San Jose's most prominent citizens. He captained the volunteer company that seized San Jose from the Mexican government, served in the California Battalion of John C. Fremont, and was elected mayor in 1859. As impressive as the house is, many feel he represented American imperialism and repression of the Mexican population, and thus probably shouldn't be so honoured, which... I kind of agree with... don't tell my history teacher...

Stop #4: St. James Park

St. James Park was the heart of 19th-century San Jose. While the site had been considered as a possible future plaza by Spanish and Mexican authorities, it was not formally developed until after the US takeover. While the Plaza had been the centre of an older Latino settlement, St. James Park and its surrounding buildings reflected the aspirations of an emerging American city. Plotted by Chester Lyman in 1848, the park evolved over the next half century as the focus of many of San Jose's most important civic and religious buildings - even today, the courthouse is right nearby! Unfortunately, the park now is a not very nice area and is now mostly known for the fact that you can apparently buy drugs there at night. Or get stabbed. Or both.

It is also where Tiburcio Vasquez was hung in the late 1800s. Some consider him the Robin Hood of California, and he was one of the real life inspirations for Zorro. He was a bandito - a formerly wealthy Mexican who got kinda screwed over by the US takeover of former Mexican-Spanish territories, and thus took to robbing white people, as you do. If you have the time, you should definitely read his wikipedia page, because he was a fascinating guy, and its a shame he only lived to be 39.

Stop #5: The Jose Theatre

While notable for its architecture, which has influences from the Mexican Mission Revival style, the Jose Theatre was also used as a Mexican Dance Hall. Feeling alienated from a dominantly white culture that sought to include them, the Mexican community of San Jose made its own establishments. There were Mexican groceries, Mexican theatres, Mexican churches, and many other places made by Mexicans, for Mexicans. Many of the Mexican youth of San Jose, especially after World War II, also developed interest in rock and roll music, and in dancing Cuban and Puerto Rican dance steps. It became common for Mexican-American youth to travel downtown to “the Mexican dances”, to dance halls like those once housed in the Jose Theatre, so they could seek out these forms of entertainment among their peers. The Jose Theatre now houses the San Jose Improv, a comedy theatre.

Stop #6: El Paseo Shopping Block on South First Street

Another example of the Mexican mission revival architecture was the “El Paseo” shopping centre on South First Street. This was a popular architectural style in California in the 1920s when there was an odd wave of nostalgia for the Spanish Colonial period, even during a period of anti-Mexican racism. There were many Mexicans immigrating to the state of California at this time, and the white population living here wanted to use both architecture and parties such as “Fiesta Week” to make a distinction between “long-dead Californios, played by white San Joseans, and contemporary [Mexican] peons entirely absent from the public sphere. The celebrations made clear that the region’s early dons and doñas had been racially pure rather than mixed-blood mestizos, and migrant Mexican peons found no forebears in these representations of the region’s early ‘civilisers’.” It is likely that this architectural style served a similar purpose as these Fiesta pageants. (Quotes from Stephen Pitti)

This building has also kind of fallen into disarray. It's still a shopping centre, but the tiles in the fountain are faded and chipped, and it smells very strongly of urine. 

Stop #7: The Former Palomar Ballroom

On the side of a building near the De Anza Hotel is a series of photo-murals commemorating the Palomar Ballroom, another former dance hall that served the Mexican community of San Jose after World War II. The Palomar Ballroom was managed by Frank Padilla and was known for its programs of Latin music. It was known for a diverse variety in the music it played, “from Mexican traditional folk roots to mainstream swing and jazz,” according to Suzanne Guerra. Famous performers such as Tito Puente, Desi Arnaz, and Lalo Guerrero also performed at the Palomar Ballroom. During the 1950s, the programming expanded to host both big band groups and rock and roll concerts, to attract younger patrons, and in the 1960s bands such as Los Lobos also performed here. Though the Palomar was open for nearly sixty years, the building is no longer standing. It has been replaced by a residential building called the Axis Condos, a slice of cultural history lost to gentrification even here in San Jose. (And here I thought that was just a New York problem...)

Thoughts...
 
I learned a lot about local Mexican history from this assignment, about how vast and rich it is in San Jose - and about how frustrating it is that I knew very little of this stuff before! Why isn't this stuff better taught?! (Okay I know why it isn't taught - that reason starts with an 'r' and ends with an 'acist bastards' - but still.) All in all, I am glad I got assigned this, even if the write-up for it was a pain in the ass that took me 5 hours.

Adios until after finals,
~Nym~