Barrio1

It is an American story. It is a human story. The Irish came, fleeing English tyranny and the potato famine. Thousands of Jews landed on Ellis Island to avoid Czarist pogroms. Many of today’s Barrio residents are the descendents of those who escaped from the smoke, blood and chaos of the Mexican Revolution. The history of Carlsbad’s Barrio really begins in the fires and oppression of that war.

It is the quintessential immigrant story and it continues in sepia memories and looks forward in common hope. ‘Barrio’ in Spanish means neighborhood. Thus it is a story of people, of families and of their dreams. The Ortegas can trace their lineage back to Portola. The Osunas and Marrons to the Californios, but most of the Barrio’s old family lines, Aguilar, Acuña, Gastelum, Mata, Munoz, Ramirez, Sanchez, Soto. Trejo, Villasenor - are children of that mass migration.

The Revolution began in 1910 as an attempt to overthrow dictator Porfirio Diaz Mori. It escalated into civil war and the national upheaval continued into the ’20s. The major players in the Revolution, Carranza, Obregon, Villa and Zapata, at first had common cause, but as the war continued, ambitions and loyalties seemed to shift with the wind. As in most wars, it was the common people who bore the brunt of every twist. One million of Mexico’s 15 million citizens were either killed or fled north.

Feliciano Mata was an officer in Pancho Villa’s army. His son, Tony Mata, Sr. retells his father’s stories and the dangers. “Armies would ride into small villages and the villagers were very loyal to them while they were there, if you know what I mean.” Aiding and abetting the enemy could mean death, but when friends and enemies keep changing partners it became a delicate dance.

Mata tells how his father “Swept into my mother’s village on a black horse and took her away.” Then he admits it wasn’t quite that easy. Concepcion, the object of Feliciano’s desires, was a nun. The local padre explained to Feliciano that she was married to the church. “My father told the priest, ‘We need to talk.’ They went inside and my father set a stack of gold pieces and his gun on the table before they talked,” Mata said with a wink. The priest performed the ceremony. And eventually Feliciano and Concepcion came north to Carlsbad.

Bibiano Gastelum was a hard working cowboy, a vaquero. Just wanting to raise his family in peace, he moved back and forth across what is now the border of Arizona and Sonora, Mexico because of trouble from Apache Indians and Villa’s army. He eventually came west. He and his wife Josefa finally settled in Carlsbad in 1924. They were followed by some of Bibiano’s eleven siblings–Leon, Nicolas and Ana Maria. Bill Dominguez, a grandson of Bibiano and Josefa, said, “Chain migration was common then. Life for many revolved around ranchos.” If the rancho was affected by the revolution, it was more than one family that would up and move.

The bestselling author Victor Villasenor described this period and his family’s migration to Carlsbad in his book Rain of Gold. His book Thirteen Senses also describes the early days of what was sometimes called Barrio Carlos Malo. That is an attempt to literally translate from English to Spanish Carlsbad’s German name. Now there is a colloquialism.

At the turn of the century the area that is now the Barrio was more of a camp for laborers in San Diego’s agrarian society. As people came into the area Alex La Betta bought land and built small, simple houses with no electricity or indoor plumbing and sold them for $500. In Windows on the Past, a history of Carlsbad by Susan Gutierrez she wrote that this “provided the foundation for Carlsbad’s first neighborhood subdivision.”

The priests of San Luis Rey would come to say Mass for the growing Catholic population. St. Patrick’s Catholic Church was built in 1927 on Harding Street at Oak Street. In 1924, James and Marjorie Spencer came as missionaries to the growing community. When they left to continue mission work in South America, John and Ruth Henley arrived to continue the Wesleyan Methodist Church on Roosevelt Street.

Gutierrez wrote, “Reverend Henley was totally devoted to his missionary flock, even working in the flower fields as a majordomo for the Frazees” to support his family. Ofie Escobedo, one of the current owners of Lola’s in Barrio Carlos, said, “The Henley’s were beautiful people, just beautiful.” Concepcion Mata died when her youngest of nine children was just a year old, which prompted Feliciano to take his children to Mission San Luis Rey. He was afraid he could not properly care for them alone. Tony Mata said, “Mr. Henley convinced my father to keep all the children together in Carlsbad. The Henley’s looked after my younger sisters and arranged for another Methodist woman to take me in.”

Across from the Metodista Iglesia was a store and a pool hall. The dirt road intersection of 2nd Street (Roosevelt) and Walnut was the heart of the Barrio. Carlsbad at this time was an agricultural community. Most Barrio residents worked the land. Those who didn’t usually were businessmen who ran services needed by farmers. Originally, Pablo Trejo had a small store here. Through the ’30s and ’40s the intersection saw many entrepreneurial ventures. John Sotello acquired a store, which later became Jaure’s (owned by Reyes and Delores “Lola” Jauregui). Salvador Villasenor had a pool hall that Bibiano Gastelum bought out and it became Roy and Eddie’s (named after the Gastelum brothers who ran it). Also at this intersection was a small store owned by Soledad Davila, and later Balthazar Aranda (now Lola’s). These were the daily gathering places either to shop or shoot the breeze at the end of a long day.

Victor Villasenor said, “My grandmother lived behind the pool hall. I remember the chickens and goats and the roses.” Most houses had vegetable and flower gardens and livestock from chickens to cows. Gilbert Munoz remembers “Nothing but open fields between Madison and State Street,” Villasenor said, “My dad had the pool hall from 1934 to 1944. It was the hub of the Barrio. Single men who worked in the fields got their mail there. And Dad was sort of a marriage counselor.” Villasenor recalled, “Some advice was disastrous,” he said with a laugh.

In 1937, Refugio and Juanita Rochin moved to Carlsbad and started a store and El Mexicano, a restaurant at Roosevelt and Walnut. Refugio also had a wholesale business with Manuel Castorena called C & R Provisions. Rochin would also begin another very successful restaurant in Oceanside called The Acapulco Gardens. Castorena would open a stationary store on Grand Avenue and become Carlsbad’s second mayor. Or as Escobedo said, “He always said he was Carlsbad’s first Chicano mayor.”

Hispanic businesses were not restricted just to the Barrio of course. Pete Aguilar started a store on State Street and ended up owning the whole Killian building. On the other side of the street was a building owned by the Garcia family (where, naturally, Garcia’s Barber Shop and Garcia’s Mexican Restaurant is now).

The families escaping the Revolution and seeking a better life were unfortunately arriving just in time for the U.S. to be shaken economically by the Depression. As unemployment soared, the U.S. government had a repatriation program to Mexico. This was a pleasant term for a rather questionable deportation scheme. Over a quarter of a million people of Mexican descent, many U.S. citizens, were sent to Mexico. Barrio Carlos lost some of its own to this coercive “voluntary” program.

The children of the first immigrants were at first put in Americanization schools. But Bill Dominguez said, “Carlsbad mixed all their kids from the get go.” Ben Acuña remembered, “School policemen would walk around and if you were speaking Spanish, even on the playground, that was it. But it was OK, we needed to learn English. We are Americans.” Tony Mata remembered the repercussions as “They would whip your butt. Take you right to the principal’s office.”

Mata said, “I was not raised to notice differences [between ethnicities]. When I went to Oceanside/Carlsbad High School and was voted freshman class president someone came up to me and said, ‘Did you see the paper?’ No, what’d it say? ‘First Latino Elected Class President.’ Oh yeah, who is that?” Munoz said of prejudice, “We knew it was there, but it never effected me.” Mata echoed that, “If you didn’t focus on that you were fine.” Munoz had plenty of gringo friends at his house all the time. Why? “They came for my mother’s cooking.”

If life was hard for the first generation of immigrants, the realities of the depression on the second and third generation went in some ways unnoticed. For the kids growing up in the ’30s and ’40s it was all fun. Asked about that time when they were children, you are likely to end up in a conversation about baseball, music or food. Sister Freeman, also a Gastelum granddaughter, said, “Most of what I remember was playing baseball on Roosevelt with all my cousins. I loved baseball.” When Ben Acuña complains that “we had to rough it” he is talking about playing ball in the weeds.

“We knew we were poor,” Munoz said, “but it was never put in our face.” Freeman said a perfect day was “Sitting on my grandmother’s (Josefa’s) porch eating bean burritos.” Dominguez (same grandma) said, “She would make these Sonoran tortillas,” holding his hands wide for measure, “And then fill them with beans. That and a Pepsi and you thought you were in heaven.” Dominguez remembers it as “A kid’s paradise. With our aunts, we were never hungry. Every house we went into, they would ask, ‘Mijo, have you eaten?’” Freeman remembers lots of music. “There was nothing else to do. I was a dancing thing. Polkas, Western music and especially Mexican folk music.” And Dominguez remembers “Soap box cars on Highland and overnight camping in Hosp Grove.”

Everyone agreed the beach was the best entertainment. Dominguez remembered going with a gang of cousins and no adults, “When I was probably 10.” Henry Trejo, Sr. said, “I built my own surfboard when I was in high school. It cost about $20. I worked all summer, but it was worth it.” Munoz said, “It was the friendships; it was beautiful.”

For the kids, the ’40s was still a great place to grow up. But WWII called Americans to fight and the Barrio sent their sons for their country. Trejo said, “I was a Seabee. My brother Rueben was in the Army and Pete in the Navy in Pacific.” Twenty-two Gastelum first cousins fought in every major theater of the war. Four Munoz brothers. Four Acuña brothers. Tom Acuña would run across another Carlsbadian in battle and hold him until he died. “Tell my mother I love her,” was the message he would convey home. Dominguez said his grandfather Bibiano’s kitchen was, “The war room. He had a map of the world with markers where all his grandsons were, and the cousins at home got a briefing every morning.” After the war the Barrio began to change. Most would welcome their sons home to a growing economy.

As Dominguez said, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” Prosperity was moving some of the old clans out of the neighborhood. But the memories remain - the orchards, the kids laughing down the road, young love and long marriages. Dominguez said, “There was so much broken multi-colored glass on one street we called it Diamond Avenue. And in winter when it rained we called Walnut Street Venice.” Memories can make even the bitter sweet. Gossip and glory, mundane joys from exceptional circumstances. It is an American story that is still being written. •