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“Strictly in the Capacity of Servant”: The Interconnection Between Residential and School Segregation in Oxnard, California, 1934–1954

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David G. Garcia  and
Tara J. Yosso
David G. Garcia
Affiliation:
Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles
Tara J. Yosso
Affiliation:
Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara
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Extract

About two years ago, Haydock Grammar School was taken away from the use of the American children and given bodily over to the use of Mexicans… This leaves all of Oxnard, from fourth Street… to Hill Street, without a school for American children; and the children from the south part of town have to pass the Mexicans coming from the northerly parts of town on their ways to school… We resent the implication that the Acre Tract is a Mexican district… If there is an urgent need to care for the Mexican Children, a school should be built in Colonia Gardens, or somewhere else in close proximity to their homes.

Type
Articles
Information
History of Education Quarterly , Volume 53 , Issue 1 , February 2013 , pp. 64 - 89
Copyright
Copyright © 2013 History of Education Society 

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References

1 Personal correspondence from Oxnard resident Alice Shaffer to Burfeind, Mr. Harland, Clerk of the Oxnard School Board of Trustees, 21 April 1938. The microfilm of this letter is filed along with the Oxnard School Board of Trustees meeting minutes, at the Oxnard Elementary School District archives, Oxnard, California. We hereafter refer to these microfilm materials as OSBT minutes, date.Google Scholar

2 For further discussion of space as a social product inscribed with relations of power, politics, and ideology, see Soja, Edward W., Postmodern Geographies: The Reassertion of Space in Critical Social Theory (New York: Verso, 1989).Google Scholar

3 We use this term to refer to women and men of Mexican origin or descent, regardless of immigration status, while acknowledging that the majority of the Mexican children who attended Oxnard schools during the decades of the 1930s to 1950s were born in the United States. When we discuss the era of the 1940s and especially after WWII, we use the term most common to that period, Mexican American.Google Scholar

4 The U.S. Supreme Court declared federal or state enforcement of racial covenants unconstitutional in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948). In Barrows v. Jackson, 346 U.S. 249 (1953), the Court ruled that individual homeowners or homeowners associations could not seek damages from their neighbors for violating racial covenants. Just one year later, the Court ruled that segregated schools were inherently unequal and unconstitutional, in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).Google Scholar

5 For city population numbers by decade, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. Table 6. Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions: 1930 to 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 5, 18; for number of Mexicans in Oxnard, see U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. vol. IV, Special Reports, Part 3, Chapter C, Table 7. Citizenship and Country of Birth of White Persons of Spanish Surname, For Counties and Urban Places of 10,000 or More in Selected Southwestern States: 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 3C, 43; elementary school enrollment estimate noted by Trustee Burfeind, 1938. Correspondence from Burfeind, J. H., Clerk of Oxnard School Board of Trustees to Mrs. Alice Shaffer, OSBT minutes, 25 April 1938.Google Scholar

6 For an example of referencing residential segregation as a contributing factor to segregated schools, see Valencia, Richard R., Menchaca, Martha, and Donato, Ruben, “Segregation, Desegregation, and Integration of Chicano Students: Old and New Realities,” in Chicano School Failure and Success: Past, Present, and Future, ed. Valencia, Richard R. (London: Routledge, 2002), 70–113; quote from critical review of research examining schools exclusive of housing and vice versa, Ong, Paul M. and Rickles, Jordan, “The Continued Nexus between School and Residential Segregation.” Berkeley La Raza Law Journal 15 (2004): 51–66, 53; for some of the few exceptions to this pattern in the literature, see the papers published from a 1995 forum In Pursuit of A Dream Deferred: Linking Housing and Education Policy by the Institute on Race and Poverty and University of Minnesota Law School, University of Minnesota Law Review 80, no. 4 (1996): 743–910. See also edited volume with reprints and additional essays, Powell, John A., Kearney, Gavin, and Key, Vina, eds., In Pursuit of A Dream Deferred: Linking Housing and Education Policy (New York: Peter Lang, 2001); for examples of Black/White, urban/suburban analysis, see Matthew Lassiter's essay introducing three distinct articles in a special section of the Journal of Urban History “exploring the interplay between educational policies and housing markets in metropolitan U.S. history during the twentieth century” (196). These studies highlight what he determines to be a “disciplinary divide between the history of education and urban/suburban history,” which he argues, necessitates “a new methodological approach that recognizes the mutually constitutive nature of public education and private housing on the metropolitan landscapes of modern America.” Lassiter, Matthew D., “Schools and Housing in Metropolitan History: An Introduction,” Journal of Urban History 38, no. 2 (2012): 195–204, 196.Google Scholar

7 Carey McWilliams wrote about Southern California as a rurban region that was “neither city nor country but everywhere a mixture of both” (12). Carey McWilliams, Southern California: An Island on the Land (Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 1946), 12.Google Scholar

8 Montejano, David, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836–1986 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987), 686–94.Google Scholar

9 Ramos, Christopher, “The Educational Legacy of Racially Restrictive Covenants: Their Long Term Impact on Mexican Americans,” The Scholar 4 (2002): 686–94, 169.Google Scholar

10 Ibid.Google Scholar

11 Ibid., 155.Google Scholar

12 For detailed analysis of the early school board minutes, see García, David G., Yosso, Tara J., and Barajas, Frank P., “‘A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children': School Segregation as a Form of Mundane Racism in Oxnard, California, 1900–1940,” Harvard Educational Review 82, no. 1 (2012): 1–25.Google Scholar

13 For more on labor in Oxnard, see Moreno, Louie Herrera, “Labor, Migration, and Activism: A History of Mexican Workers on the Oxnard Plain, 1930–1980” (PhD dissertation, East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, 2012); Barajas, Frank P., Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898–1961 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2012).Google Scholar

14 Ramos, “The Educational Legacy of Racially Restrictive Covenants,” 155.Google Scholar

15 Ford, Richard Thompson, “The Boundaries of Race: Political Geography in Legal Analysis,” Harvard Law Review 107, no. 8 (1994): 1841–1921, 1845.Google Scholar

16 See Lopez, Ian Haney, White By Law: The Legal Construction of Race (New York University Press, 1996); Martinez, George A, “The Legal Construction of Race: Mexican-Americans and Whiteness,” Harvard Latino Law Review 2, no. 1 (1997): 686–94.Google Scholar

17 See Gómez-Quiñones, Juan, Mexican American Labor, 1790–1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994).Google Scholar

18 For early 1900s example, see Camarillo, Albert, Chicanos in California: A History of Mexican Americans in California (Francisco, San, CA; Boyd & Fraser Publishing Company, 1984), 31–46; for examples from the 1930s, see Taylor, Paul S., Mexican Labor in the United States, vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1930), 86–89. For examples from the 1940s, see Gómez-Quiñones, Juan, Chicano Politics: Reality and Promise, 1940–1990 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1990), 42–43. See also Vose, Clemente E., Caucasians Only: The Supreme Court, the NAACP, and the Restrictive Covenant Cases (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959).Google Scholar

19 Wollenberg, Charles M., With All Deliberate Speed: Segregation and Exclusion in California Schools, 1855–1975 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978); Valencia, , Menchaca, , and Donate, , “Segregation, Desegregation, and Integration of Chicano Students.”Google Scholar

20 Gonzalez, Gilbert, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation (Philadelphia, PA: Balch Institute Press, 1990), 21.Google Scholar

21 Samora, Julian, “Mexican Immigration,” in Mexican-Americans Tomorrow: Educational and Economic Perspectives, ed. Tylor, Gus (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1975), 60–80, 62.Google Scholar

22 See Gonzalez, Gilbert G., “Segregation of Mexican Children in a Southern California City: The Legacy of Expansionism and the American Southwest,” The Western Historical Quarterly 16, no. 1 (1985): 55–76; Menchaca, Martha and Valencia, Richard R., “Anglo-Saxon Ideologies in the 1920s–1930s: Their Impact on the Segregation of Mexican Students in California,” Anthropology & Education Quarterly 21, no. 3 (1990): 222–49; Miguel, Guadalupe San and Valencia, Richard R., “From the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to Hopwood: The Educational Plight and Struggle for Equity for Mexican Americans in the Southwest,” Harvard Educational Review 68, no. 3 (1998): 353–412.Google Scholar

23 Mills, Charles W., The Racial Contract (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997); for more on this argument in relation to schools and labor, see Garcia, Yosso, and Barajas, “A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children,” 3.Google Scholar

24 Ibid., 2. Our definition expands on scholarly analysis of racism in U.S. society, see Bell, Derrick A., And We Will Not Be Saved: The Elusive Quest for Racial Justice (New York: Basic Books, 1987); Bell, Derrick A, Faces At the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism (New York: Basic Books, 1992); Marable, Manning, Black America (Westfield, NJ: Open Media, 1992).Google Scholar

25 In earlier historical periods, the lands that became incorporated into the City of Oxnard were home to indigenous Chumash communities and Mexican rancho owners (Californios).Google Scholar

26 The ABSC became the American Crystal Sugar Company in 1934 and remained in operation until 1958.Google Scholar

27 The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 restricted the recruitment of Chinese workers, and in 1907, the Gentlemen's Agreement barred Japanese immigration, resulting in Mexicans being the largest group of workers in Oxnard.Google Scholar

28 “Major Driffil [sic] Meets End,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 19 March 1917; “Adobe Houses for Mexican Laborers,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 13 December 1917; the ABSC also encouraged the construction of adobe dwellings on the ranches of Springville, Hendry, , and Mountain, Round, “Homes for Workers Solve Labor Need,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 1 February 1918; “Free Houses Bring Mexican Families,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 13 February 1918; “Sugar Beet Outlook Is Hopeful,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 9 March 1918; “Citrus Heights Company Will Built [sic] Houses,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 2 January 1920.Google Scholar

29 “Factory Brings Many Families Here From Chino,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 30 April 1918; “A.B.S. Company Will Build Twenty Houses for Employees,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 10 May 1918; “New Street For New A.B.S. Houses,” The Oxnard Daily Courier; 29 May 1918; “Big Whistle Sounds Sugar Making Season,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 24 August 1918; “Will Build 6 Bungalows At Once,” The Oxnard Daily Courier 23 January 1920.Google Scholar

30 Almaguer, Tomás, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy i? California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 188.Google Scholar

31 Ibid.Google Scholar

32 Driffill served as the CIC President and went on to establish the Oxnard Ligh and Water Company, and the Oxnard Publishing Company.Google Scholar

33 See description of La Colonia in the early 1940s as a “mud wallow” without pave streets until 1945, and without electricity and gas in many homes until after WWII. Do Martin, W., “Long-Time Colonia Resident Is Bitter,” The Press Courier, Saturday, 2 July 1963, 4.Google Scholar

34 Dagodag, William Tim, “A Social Geography of La Colonia: A Mexica American Settlement in the City of Oxnard, California” (master's thesis, San Fernand Valley State College, 1967).Google Scholar

35 In 1930, Ventura County included the cities of Camarillo, Fillmore, Huenem Ojai, Oxnard, Piru, Santa Paula, Simi, and Ventura. See U.S. Census, Population, California Table 4. Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions: 1930, 1920, and 19 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1930), 140; similar to Oxnar racial demarcation along railroad tracks occurred across California and the Southwes See description of towns in the Imperial Valley, California in Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, 83; for an example of restrictive covenants on the northwest side, see indenture between Oxnard Land Company and Caroline Durr, 6 December 1912, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 134, 547. Oxnard Land Company President Thomas M. Hill also co-owned a racially restricted subdivision in southwest Oxnard, referred to in the record as the Wolff, Hill, Laubacher Addition to the City of Oxnard, see n60, n65. See also “Restrictions, Covenants and Conditions Imposed Upon Oxnard Development Company, Unit No. 2,” 22 November 1943, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 696, 469, specifying racial covenants for this subdivision would bind the land until 1 January 1970 and would extend automatically for periods of ten years unless of a majority of then owners terminated them. Oxnard Development Company co-partner Walter, H. Lathrop also owned and co-owned additional racially restricted subdivisions in Oxnard, see n60, n69, n74, n77.Google Scholar

36 The FHA was created in 1934, and continued to officially encourage racial discrimination until the 1948 U.S. Supreme Court Shelley v. Kraemer decision; see, for example, Federal Housing Administration Underwriting Manual, Washington, DC, 1947, sections 1320 (1) and 1320 (2); see also Abrams, Charles, Forbidden Neighbors: A Study of Prejudice and Housing (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955).Google Scholar

37 Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, 81.Google Scholar

38 Haydock School bore the name of the first mayor of Oxnard, who served as the Principal-Superintendent of Oxnard Grammar School since 1911 and continued as District Superintendent from 1921 to 1939; Oxnard Grammar School was constructed in 1908, and became Theodore Roosevelt School in 1924, after a fire destroyed the original building. The Roosevelt School mainly enrolled lower primary grades, and functioned until 1949, when the Trustees sold the property to the city. Helen Frost, “Oxnard School District, 1875–1975” (pamphlet, Oxnard Elementary School District Archives, 1975); Wilson School was built in 1924 and remained in use until 1961. Wilson mainly enrolled students in upper primary grades 5–8, segregated into all-Mexican classes with select Mexican students enrolled in otherwise exclusively White classes.Google Scholar

39 See, for example, OSBT minutes, 16 January 1926; 6 September 1927; 3 January 1928; 1 May 1928.Google Scholar

40 U.S. Bureau of the Census. U.S. Census of the Population: 1930, Population, California Table 17. Indians, Chinese and Japanese 1910 to 1930 and Mexicans, 1930 for counties and for cities of 25,000 or more (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1930), 266.Google Scholar

41 See correspondence from Burfeind to Shaffer, OSBT minutes, 25 April 1938.Google Scholar

42 Likewise, the educational codes made no allowances for segregating Blacks. For example, in 1927, Political Code section 1662 of the California Constitution read, “the governing power of the school district shall have power to exclude children of filthy or vicious habits, or children suffering from contagious or infectious diseases, and also to establish separate schools for Indian children and for children of Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian parentage” (308). Statutes of California 1927 (Sacramento, CA: California State Printing Office, 1927). See same language in Elementary School section of the School Law of California 1927 (Sacramento, CA: Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction W. M. John Cooper, 1927), 132.Google Scholar

43 See Wollenberg, With All Deliberate Speed, 118; see also Gonzalez, Chicano Education in the Era of Segregation. Google Scholar

44 Leis, Ward A., “The Status of Education for Mexican Children in Four Border States” (master's thesis, Los Angeles: University of Southern California, 1931), 27, 29, 65.Google Scholar

45 Grant deed from Adamson, F. H. and Adamson, Lulu E. to Reynolds, James E. and Reynolds, Blanche T., 23 September 1926, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 127, 1, “Subject to certain conditions, restrictions, and provisions” in the deed from Chrisman, Gilpin W. and Chrisman, Jennie M. to Barr, B. Frank and Barr, Homer P., 14 February 1925, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 34, 467.Google Scholar

46 Ibid.Google Scholar

47 “Mexican costs are too high says Co. Head,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 31 January 1928, 1.Google Scholar

48 Ibid.Google Scholar

49 Ibid.Google Scholar

50 OSBT minutes, 4 November 1936.Google Scholar

51 OSBT minutes, 20 November 1936.Google Scholar

52 OSBT minutes, 22 September 1937.Google Scholar

53 Ibid.Google Scholar

54 Ibid.Google Scholar

55 Quotes and capitals/lowercase inconsistencies in original, OSBT minutes, 27 September 1937.Google Scholar

56 OSBT minutes, 30 September 1937.Google Scholar

57 OSBT minutes, 8 November 1937.Google Scholar

58 Personal correspondence, Shaffer to Burfeind, OSBT minutes, 21 April 1938.Google Scholar

59 Ibid.Google Scholar

60 Shaffer owned at least three parcels of land in Oxnard, two that lay in the Wolff, Hill, Laubacher subdivision and one located in the Walter, H. Lathrop Subdivision. See indenture between Gray, W. H. and Gray, Alice Hoey; and Tash, Ruth, 16 May 1934, Clerk, Ventura County and Recorder, , Book 418, 107. See also indenture between Tash, Ruth; and Gray, W. H. and Gray, Alice Hoey, 16 May 1934, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 418, 110. The racially restrictive covenants in the Lathrop parcel are specified in the indenture between Lathrop, Walter H. and Lathrop, Edna; and Madison, John A., 24 May 1913, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 138, 272, and referenced in the indenture between Madison, John A. and Madison, Edith; and Hoey, Alice A., 28 October 1924, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 29, 420. Evidence strongly indicates that her Hill Street parcels also included racial covenants. See n35 on Hill, T. M., co-owner of Oxnard Land Company. See also indenture between the Co, Wolff and Hill, T. M. referring to two lots in Block 1 within the Wolff, Hill, Laubacher subdivision and specifying, “No part of the said premises shall never be sold to Negroes, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, or Indians,” 29 April 1912, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 133, 144. Such racial restrictions were again specified on the indenture between the Wolff Co. and Hill referring to four lots in their co-owned subdivision's Block 2, 18 May 1917, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 155, 466.Google Scholar

61 OSBT minutes, 9 November 1936.Google Scholar

62 Personal correspondence, Shaffer to Burfeind, OSBT minutes, 21 April 1938.Google Scholar

63 Correspondence, Burfeind to Shaffer, 25 April 1938.Google Scholar

64 Ibid.Google Scholar

65 Grant deed from Alice Shaffer, H. G., formerly Alice Hoey Gray, to Carrington, William M. and Carrington, Christina, 26 August 1940, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 620, 653. This deed indicates that by August 1940, Shaffer had established a new permanent address in Ventura. Ten years later, she sold her remaining Wolff, Hill, Laubacher subdivision property, including 416 Hill Street, where Burfeind had addressed his response letter. See grant deed from Alice Shaffer, H. G. to Gisler, Raymond F. and Gisler, Marion, 27 December 1950, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 974, 306. The house at 416 Hill Street was sold again in 1957, still “Subject to all covenants, conditions, restrictions, reservations, rights of way, and all easements of record.” See grant deed from Gisler, Raymond F. and Gisler, Marion to James Cannon, Jr. and Cannon, Siporah Louise, 24 September 1957, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 1552, 539.Google Scholar

66 Emphasis in original, Sussman, Michael H., “Discrimination: A Pervasive Concept” in Powell, Kearney, and Key, In Pursuit of a Dream Deferred, 209–28, 209.Google Scholar

67 Miedema, Madeline, “A Giant Step Forward: A History of the Oxnard Public Library, 1907–1992” The Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly 37, no. 2 (1992):Google Scholar

68 Indenture between Hickey Brothers Company and Ray Erwin Dockstader and Nora Belle Dockstader, 16 January 1928, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 151, 408. This deed was “Subject to conditions, restrictions and provisions” as contained in the deed from Oxnard Land Company to Childs, T.J., specifying “said premises shall not, at any time, be sold or conveyed to any person of the Negro, Japanese, or Chinese race, nor to any Mexican or Indian,” 1 February 1912, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 134, 85. When Dockstader sold this property in 1966, his grant deed specified that the property remained “subject to covenants, conditions, restrictions, and easements of record.” See grant deed from Dockstader, Ray E. to Folcke, Oliver A. and Folcke, Virginia F., 7 March 1966, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 2974, 161.Google Scholar

69 For an example of racial conditions restricting sale of property, see indenture between Lathrop, Walter H. and Lathrop, Edna; and Power, E. W., 28 April 1913, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 137, 366; for rental, use, or occupancy restrictions, see grant deed from Security-First National Bank of Los Angeles to Elmer W. Power, 2 September 1931, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 360, 454.Google Scholar

70 Grant deed from Agee, E. H. and Agee, Annie Boyden to Beach, Everett C., 8 July 1930, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 322, 112. Grant deed from Adolph, J. Carty to Beach, Everett C., 17 November 1930, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 333, 245. The deed specifies the property is part of Edwin L. Carty's Subdivision. The record shows Adolph, J. Carty co-owned Carty Tract No. 1 with Carty, Edwin L. and his wife Carty, Doris C., see Miscellaneous Record specifying that if breach of conditions and restrictions occurred, property owners would not render mortgage or deed of trust invalid, 12 June 1939, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 592, 544. See also restrictions for Carty, Edwin L. and Doris, C. Carty Tract No. 2, 5 October 1939, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 601, 139, and Book 600, 366. Both documents bind entire blocks in Carty Tract until 1965. See extended Carty tract restrictions, n80–n81.Google Scholar

71 “Reservations, Restrictions, and Protective Covenants Applicable to the Agee, Eugene H. Subdivision,” 16 January 1946, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 736, 239. This document specifies covenants “run with the land” until 1 January 1966, and would automatically extend for successive periods of ten years unless a majority of then owners agreed to change them. See also “Reservations, Restrictions, and Protective Covenants Applicable to the Agee, Eugene H. Subdivision,” 18 June 1951, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 1005, 35, which bound another part of Agee's subdivision until 1 January 1972 with the same racial covenant language and successive ten-year extension periods.Google Scholar

72 Gonzalez, “Segregation of Mexican Children in a Southern California City,” 57.Google Scholar

73 Donato, Rubén, “Sugar Beets, Segregation, and Schools: Mexican Americans in a Northern Colorado Community, 1920–1960” Journal of Latinos and Education 2, no. 2 (2003): 69–88, 84.Google Scholar

74 For instance, the OSBT minutes on 30 September 1937 note, “Insurance policies expiring October 1 were renewed with Power, E. W., successor to Levy, Henry, Eastwood, H. H., Agee, E. H., and Treher, John“ Again on 8 September 1938, the minutes state, “It was voted to have school insurance policies changed in accordance with the five-year plan proposed and submitted by Agee, Mr. E. H.“; Eastwood included racial covenants on his properties, and co-owned the racially restricted Eastwood Lathrop Subdivision, see for example, indenture between Eastwood, H. H. and Eastwood, Irma I.; and Lathrop, Walter H. and Lathrop, Edna to Cooluris, John, 12 January 1926, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 31, 63; see n71 for Agee's long-term covenants; see also grant deed from Leon Lehmann to Treher, John D., 17 December 1930, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 319, 271.Google Scholar

75 See indenture between Carty, Edwin L. and Carty, Doris C.; and Pryor, George M. and Pryor, Gertrude E., 10 June 1938, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 567, 119. Grant deed from Pryor, George M. and Pryor, Gertrude E. to Robinson, Hugh B. and Robinson, Oleta, 10 October 1945, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 728, 445.Google Scholar

76 Indenture between Dawley, Kate J. and specified, Bernice Curren, “that no part of said premises shall ever be sold or rented to Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, or Indians, and that no part of said premises shall ever be rented to or occupied by Negroes,” 15 January 1937, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 516, 162.Google Scholar

77 See for example, “Elementary Schools to Open Sept. 10, New Teachers Due,” Oxnard Press Courier, Thursday, 29 August 1940, Section 2, 6. According to this list and school board minutes, Grace, C. Noble was hired for the 1940–1941 school year at Haydock School. Grant deed from Diedrich, Alta E. to Noble, Lorraine E. and Noble, Grace C., 23 October 1943. Book 683, 63–64. See also Declaration of Restrictions, Bank of Italy National Trust and Savings Association, 9 July 1928, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 216, 16. These Subdivision Restrictions utilize the same language found in Ventura County School Superintendent Reynolds’ Deed (n45), specifying the exception to occupancy only “if persons not of the Caucasian race be employed thereon by a Caucasian occupant strictly in the capacity of servant of such occupant” (17). The Oxnard Press Courier also lists Deatherage, Helen C. as a first grade teacher at Roosevelt School in 1940–1941. See Joint Tenancy Deed granted from Gastl, John D. and Gastl, Bernice D. to Deatherage, F. K. and Deatherage, Helen C., 10 July 1935, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 457, 466. See also Deed of Trust for same property, 9 July 1935, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 460, 196. Both documents refer to her property in the Lathrop, Walter H. Subdivision of Oxnard, which was “subject to conditions, restrictions, and provisions,” outlined in the indenture between Lathrop, Walter H. and Lathrop, Edna; and Rice, Kate W., specifying that “no part of the said premises shall ever be sold to Negroes, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans or Indians,” 15 May 1913, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 138, 275.Google Scholar

78 Grant deed from Agee, Eugene H. and Agee, Annie B. to Dunning, Walter M. and Dunning, Effie B., 18 October 1950, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 964, 146. Grant deed from Dunning, Walter M. and Dunning, Effie B. to Tolmach, Daniel M. and Tolmach, Jane M., 5 June 1951, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 1007, 90. Both refer back to the Declaration of Restrictions outlined by Agee, E. H., 16 January 1946, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 736, 239 (see n71).Google Scholar

79 Grant deed from Weatherall, James E. and Weatherall, Dorothy B. to Burfeind, John Harlon and Burfeind, Mary Elizabeth, 2 January 1948, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 821, 75. Weatherall and his wife had purchased the property in August of 1947, with the conditions that the covenants would bind the land until 1 January 1972, see indenture between Carty, Edwin L. and Carty, Doris C.; and Weatherall, James E. and Weatherall, Dorothy B., 16 August 1947, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 800, 333.Google Scholar

80 Carty bound most of the blocks in his subdivision by racial covenants for twenty-five to thirty years from the indenture date. See for example, indenture between Carry, Edwin L. and Carty, Doris C.; and Thomas, Elliot B. and Thomas, Olinda H., 17 December 1945, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder Book 737, 84. On this indenture, the typist struck out the termination date of racial covenants through 1965, and replaced the date with 1970.Google Scholar

81 Grant deed from Carty, Edwin L. and Carty, Doris C. to Thomas, Elliot B. and Thomas, Olinda H., 20 July 1949, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder Book 883, 390. This deed refers back to the “Declaration of Establishment of Protective Restrictions, Conditions, Covenants, and Reservations Affecting Certain Property in the City of Oxnard, County of Ventura, State of California,” 13 May 1948, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 828, 300. Carty also filed a modification of the restrictions to assure lending institutions that a breach of the restrictions and conditions would not render the mortgage invalid. “Modification of Restrictions,” 1 June 1949, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 874, 474.Google Scholar

82 Grant deed from Beach, Everett C. and Beach, Theresa C. to Brittell, Clarence A. and Brittell, Eva M., 23 August 1939, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 595, 633.Google Scholar

83 Grant deed from Holmberg, Paul A. and Holmberg, Louise Gallagher to Clowes, Richard M. and Clowes, Hannah Z., 7 June 1950, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 953, 509. Grant deed from Clowes, Richard M. and Clowes, Hannah Z. to Rees, Floyd M. and Rees, Lorraine A., 29 May 1961, Ventura County Clerk and Recorder, Book 2007, 488.Google Scholar

84 For example, the FHA offered a racial covenants template in their Underwriting Manual. See Abrams, Forbidden Neighbors, 230–37; for extensive discussion on the history of housing discrimination as it connects to contemporary racial disparities, see Melvin Oliver and Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth: Toward A New Theory of Inequality (New York: Routledge, 1994). George Lipsitz also explains, “net worth is almost totally determined by past opportunities for asset accumulation, therefore is the one figure most likely to reflect the history of discrimination” (13–14). Lipsitz, George, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998).Google Scholar

85 We draw here on the work of DuBois, W. E. B., who argued in 1903, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line” (v). DuBois, W. E. B., The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (New York: Fawcett Publications, 1961). We identified a few exceptions and contradictions to the color line in Oxnard. For example, we found Japanese and Spanish surnames on property deeds in racially restricted subdivisions, and we did not find a racially restrictive covenant on Superintendent Haydock's residence.Google Scholar

86 Taylor, Mexican Labor in the United States, 80–81; Taylor's observation also helps explain some of the exceptions we found to the pattern of residential segregation.Google Scholar

87 The group planned to assign a committee to “cooperate with the Oxnard school trustees in considering this matter as a constructive issue to be solved at once.” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 29 January 1926, Society Page.Google Scholar

88 See Menchaca, Martha, The Mexican Outsiders: A Community History of Marginalization and Discrimination in California (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).Google Scholar

89 “Supreme Court School Ruling Affects Oxnard,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 22 November 1927.Google Scholar

90 “Mexicans Can Be Separated From White Pupils—Webb,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 25 January 1930.Google Scholar

91 Ibid.Google Scholar

92 According to Francisco Balderrama, Bliss sought to add language stating, “The governing board of any school district may establish separate schools for Indian children, whether born in the United States or not,” to allow for segregation of Mexican and Mexican American children (61). Balderrama, Francisco E., In Defense of La Raza: The Los Angeles Mexican Consulate and the Mexican Community, 1929–1936 (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1982), 61. Instead, the 1935 code read, “The governing board of the school districts shall have power to establish separate schools for Indian children, excepting children of Indians who are wards of the United States government and children of all other Indians who are descendants of the original American Indians of the United States, and for children of Chinese, Japanese or Mongolian parentage” (1682). See Section 3.3. “Schools for Indians, etc.” in Supplement of 1935 to Deering's Codes and General Laws of 1931 and to Treadwell's Constitution, ed. Hillyer, Curtis (San Francisco, CA: Bancroft-Whitney Company, 1936), 1682.Google Scholar

93 Balderrama, In Defense of La Raza, 61–67.Google Scholar

94 The Oxnard Daily Courier, 25 January 1930.Google Scholar

95 Ibid. The article notes that while the case was being appealed, the three Montoya children were “not attending any school.” Three days later, the Los Angeles based La Opinion Spanish-language newspaper ran the same story in Spanish, with a front page headline Niños Mexicanos Separados en las Escuelas Americanos (Mexican children separated in American schools) La Opinion, Martes, 28 Enero 1930, 1. An oral history of one of Montoya's sons, Alfred Montoya, Jr. indicates his father's name was “Fred” rather than “Frank,” and when his legal efforts failed, he sent his children to a small school five miles south of Carpinteria, in La Conchita. He later moved his family to Montebello, California. See McCafferty, John D., Aliso School: Tor the Mexican Children’ (Santa Barbara, CA: McSeas Books, 2003), 50–51.Google Scholar

96 A Spanish-language newspaper La Voz de La Colonia, which aimed to represent the interests of the Mexican community in the areas of Ventura County, Santa Barbara, and the San Fernando Valley also reported on the case, “Sigue El Caso Carpinteria“ (The Carpinteria case continues) Jueves, 6 Marzo 1930.Google Scholar

97 See García, , Yosso, , and Barajas, , “A Few of the Brightest, Cleanest Mexican Children,” 16–17.Google Scholar

98 For more on Carballo, see n97.Google Scholar

99 OSBT minutes, 23 September 1938. Unfortunately, the records did not include the maps, charts, or tables referred to in the presentation to Mr. Hathaway.Google Scholar

100 U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. Table 4. Population of Urban Places of 10,000 or More from Earliest Census to 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 5, 10.Google Scholar

101 OSBT minutes, 27 June 1939.Google Scholar

102 Ibid.Google Scholar

103 Ibid.Google Scholar

104 “Cobb Asks Protection On Boulevard Crossings For School Children,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 2 May 1939. Within a week, the paper reported the assignment of extra crossing guards to protect the children, “Mayor W. Roy Guyer Commended For Quick Action In Safeguarding School Children,” The Oxnard Daily Courier, 9 May 1939.Google Scholar

105 “Elementary Schools to Open Sept. 10; New Teachers Due,” Oxnard Press Courier, 29 August 1940, Section 2, 6.Google Scholar

106 Ventura County counted 114,647 total residents in 1950. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. Table 6. Population of Counties by Minor Civil Divisions: 1930–1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 5, 18; Mexicans, categorized as White persons of Spanish surname, comprised 21,697 or almost 19% of Ventura County residents. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. Vol. IV, Special Reports, Part 3, Chapter C, Persons of Spanish Surname. Table 9. Characteristics of White Persons of Spanish Surname, for Selected Counties in Selected Southwestern States: 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 3C, 61.Google Scholar

107 Lyttle, Richard, “The Largest Labor Camp in Nation in Oxnard,” Oxnard Press Courier, 6 March 1958.Google Scholar

108 Voters approved the bond to establish the port in 1937 and on 9 March 1942, it was appropriated under wartime powers to establish the Naval Advanced Base Depot. Ventura County hired more than 10,000 civilian workers and 21,000 military personnel during the 1940s. Downtown Oxnard Historic Resources Survey. Final Report (Santa Paula, CA: San Buena Ventura Research Associates), 15 July 2005.Google Scholar

109 “New Elementary School Will Get Name ‘Driffill,” Oxnard Press-Courier, 10 April 1946, 1.Google Scholar

110 “School Zones Outlined; Open Sept. 13,” Oxnard Press Courier, 2 September 1948. Front Page. A map of the school zones accompanied the story.Google Scholar

111 Brittell served as the District Superintendent from 1939 until his death in 1949.Google Scholar

112 U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. vol. IV, Special Reports, Part 3, Chapter C, Table 7. Citizenship and Country of Birth of White Persons of Spanish Surname, For Counties and Urban Places of 10,000 or More in Selected Southwestern States: 1950 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 3C, 43. The 1950 U.S. Census Bureau used the term “Spanish surname” because they believed the 1930 census word, “Mexican,” and the 1940 census label “Spanish mother tongue,” led to underestimations of the Mexican population. U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 1950. Vol. IV, Special Reports, Part 3, Chapter C, Persons of Spanish Surname (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1953), Section 3C, 5–6.Google Scholar

113 McKinna served as a trustee in the 1940s. The original Haydock School remained opened until 1952, with enrollments over time of all primary grades K-8. The name transferred to the new school constructed in 1954, and has since functioned as a junior high school, enrolling 7–8 grade students.Google Scholar

114 Ford, “The Boundaries of Race,” 1859.Google Scholar

115 Lipsitz critically reflects on the legacy of racial discrimination in housing that has enabled Whites to accumulate and pass on wealth at the expense of Blacks and other Communities of Color, noting “Because of practices that racialize space and spatialize race, whiteness is learned and legitimated, perceived as natural, necessary, and inevitable” (6). George Lipsitz, Haw Racism Takes Place (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2011).Google Scholar

116 See Mendez v. Westminster, 64 F. Supp. 544 (S.D. Cal. 1946); Valencia, Richard R., “The Mexican American Struggle for Equal Educational Opportunity in Mendez v. Westminster: Helping Pave the Way for Brown v. Board of Education” Teachers College Record 107, no. 3 (2005): 389–423; Chicana/o students today are more segregated than any racial/ethnic group in the United States. See Valencia, Menchaca, and Donato, “Segregation, Desegregation, and Integration of Chicano Students,” 105.Google Scholar

117 Identified as one of the first successful challenges to racial housing covenants in the United States, the 1943 decision from Albert, F. Judge Ross of the Orange County California Superior Court found restrictive covenants against Mexicans Americans to be unconstitutional. Apparently, the Los Angeles Times also failed to report on the case, though it did make the cover story of Time magazine. See Doss v. Bernal, Superior Court of the State of California, Orange County, no. 41466 (1943); Robert Chao Romero and Luis Fernando Fernandez, Dewy v. Bernal: Ending Mexican Apartheid in Orange County, Research Report No. 14 (UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center, University of California Los Angeles, February 2012).Google Scholar

118 For school officials’ grant deeds featuring this racially restrictive language, see n45, n77.Google Scholar