Chicanosauruz at the Border

hello

my name is victor ochoa i’m a chicano

muralist here in the

border area i call it the border zone

i was born in east l.a my parents were

undocumented so it was

kind of during the late 40s

50s there was operation was

going on at that time after

world war ii so we were very

my especially my mom was very frightened

of immigration and

she didn’t teach us any spanish because

they didn’t want us

want anybody to know they were mexican i

love school

so it was really really interesting for

me to go to school

and in art started with me at

a really young age i i did drawings

in at five years old that already had

fingers and

and hats and its best and when the kids

other kids were just doing stick figures

um in 1955 you know after going to the

opening

of disneyland the immigration came over

to our house they had

trench coats they had these big gangster

hats

and i remember seeing them with these

big 45

weapons coming out of their their their

these london fogs and um they gave us

three days to

to get out of out of the united states

and go back to mexico

so my dad was saving all these carpentry

tools and he called my grandfather from

tijuana

rented a big box truck and uh

we had uh lived in a 8 by

20 redwood trailer during the war

and so he put it on the back of his 51

mercury and that’s how we all caravan

back to tijuana

it was very provocative to me to go to

tijuana

because i asked my parents in the from

the backseat of the merc

man this looks like hong kong mom and uh

it just really you know the bordellos

all the street vendors all of that was

just

completely fascinating to me as a as a

young as a young boy

i went to school i had a really great

experience

as a uh you know somebody who didn’t

speak spanish

it took me like three months to be able

to get back

to school so i was put back a year

in school but being that i was i love

school

i kind of recuperated that um

i returned after graduating from the

sixth grade in tijuana

to i went back to east l.a

in my abuelita tonya that raised my

my dad because he was a orphan in sonora

so she really kind of raised him

and so she offered a garage a garage

for me to stay it was very very

very strong but first of all not living

with my

my parents that was pretty hard for you

know

for me and um and you know they were

pretty poor my

my family was only making twenty dollars

each a week

living and working in tijuana so they

couldn’t really help me and support me

or

so it was really uh really difficult

i know that when i when i start going to

montebello junior high school

i i think that that’s where my chicano

attitude developed because i was very i

was very pre

you know protective of who i was they

were calling me

even the mexican kids were calling me

pollo which is

kind of a derogatory term but that’s

because i i could speak

spanish a lot better than them and i

knew

history and i knew um

like heroes and things like that for of

of mexico

so when they told me that pancho villa

was banned

i had to correct him i had to say you

know it

he was a national hero but the final

thing that i think

was was really weird because

montebello was primarily mexican and

they wouldn’t let us speak spanish

and so there was these two kids that

came in from tijuana

and they didn’t speak any english and i

could relate to that

and so they asked you know they were

asking where the

where the snack bar was for recess and

we had this place called the sugar shack

in the in the playground and so i i

walked them down there to

and show them where the snack bar was

and that

and i i was speaking to them in spanish

this teacher

uh said in this really racist way

you’re not supposed to be speaking

spanish on campus

and so that really um

ticked me off i actually punched him in

the face

i’m not a very violent person but i did

that

they sent me to the to the principal’s

office mr

perry i remember him i did a portrait of

him when he retired the following year

and i told him i told him the story and

he says i’ll go back to class don’t

worry about it and

i never saw that teacher that told me

that again

and so i’m not sure what what happened

finally i it was such a hardship living

in l.a and my parents still in tijuana

so i moved on my own to

uh aunt’s house for the first semester

in back to san diego to be closer and be

able to

to see my parents once in a while but

um i had to work so um

even in the ninth grade they wouldn’t

let me at hoover high school

they would not let me um

work and go to school at the same time

and so

i i got a job in a silk screenshot

during that time i was getting more and

more involved

in civil rights issues during that time

of the mid 60s you know there was a

black

the black movement of women’s liberation

movement

anti-vietnam war was

all these issues of course the chicano

movement was going on

and cesar chavez and and the farm

workers

so after work i was asked to print

a poster for the farmworkers

and uh you know this i did it completely

by hand

it had some of the issues that were

going on at that time including the

short haul the short haul issue was it

they had like stoop labor you know and

my parents

had told me that it was really terrible

for them to

to be um like that and i actually

painted them

like that on their knees on the ground

i still remember this so clear because i

was asked to

take the posters to cesar chavez

in a safeway parking lot here in san

diego

and i was like kind of really nervous i

actually printed some extra bumper

stickers

i got there on time like my mother

always told me

be on time and do what you love to do

which are the two things that i

always will remember my mother and i saw

sister chavez

and i opened the package i had 150

posters and

and i showed him to he loved them and he

he patted me on on the back and he said

we went travajo

hoven i think he said um i i was very

touched with it because you know cesar

chavez seemed to me like almost a

jesus-like person

it really you know was really important

to me to have experienced that

i met him afterwards in other campaigns

and that but that was my first

my first time in my first kind of direct

graphics work to the movement

that was you know really an important

time for me i went to city college

try to work in visual arts as much as

possible

never knowing what i wanted to do as a

career

during the time i was at san diego state

though um

i got a gestetner a flyer from city

college

that said hey everybody let’s go down to

logan

they’re trying to build a highway patrol

station at

under the bridge so i as a student i

just popped into my

at that time a volkswagen van and

went down to the park in all of a sudden

there was like

200 people they’re mostly kids and and

mothers

and there were some bulldozers and

things like that they

stopped the construction they had you

know chain

human chains around the bulldozers we um

you know i guess it was during those

hippie times where we had

i already had a sleeping bag in the car

and and

and so we we decided to stay

there at the park until we

we took over the park you know so we

there were some of the senoras

brought big pots of beans and rice and i

go

oh i’m i’m here i can stay i was so i

stayed there for about

10 days i was one of the ones that

went to city council and argued

with the mayor and that about the park

our

first murals had chicano issues

from the beginning and and the chicano

issues

still remain the same you know there’s

racism

immigration has always been an issue

and it’s gotten actually gotten worse it

seems like we had a

bilingual education we didn’t know you

know

we weren’t taught very much of our

history

uh heroes or important people i

fortunately did

know a little bit more than most

chicanos about

um for instance women’s heroes i

i came up with uh circuaninas de la cruz

josefina artisa dominguez as

that the other other chicanos didn’t

know so we got a chance to paint those

issues knowing our indigenous rights our

our heritage in fact i painted the first

chicano flag with a

mestizo um image on there and so

all of those issues were still part and

still today

i think they’re still valid i felt

so fortunate that i was involved in the

movement

of all of those human rights movements i

felt like a surfer

on a tsunami you know it was like this

giant wave

of movements of women’s movement the

anti-war

all of those things that and that was so

much energy for me and i

i feel you know that i i

i really thank in a lot of ways um

immigration for booting me out

during that period um you know the

artist

you know this is something really close

to me because

the artists were involved in all these

different issues

and so we were almost simultaneously

taking over the centro cultural de la

raza here in balboa park

again i’m very fortunate because we were

very multi-disciplinary so

i was of course a visual artist but i

worked with poets

photographers dancers

uh actors theater people so

my development as an artist was first

no censorship in any of the murals that

i’ve been painting

for 50 years now at chicano park but

also

very multi-disciplinary i like music i

do

i play some percussion and so the center

was very instrumental

in developing the first budget of the

materials i

i was director of the center of the

first director during

71 to 73 and then later

in the 80s from 83

to 85 we we purchased materials

in the first ramps that we painted with

all of those

issues the quetzalcoat mural and the

historical mural

were painted with budget of the center

cultural

well during the the 70s um the height of

the

the civil rights movements started

dwindling and it was a little

slow in fact during that time i worked

with the black panthers

but one of the great things that

happened in the mid 80s 1984 to be exact

from the center cultural with help with

david avalos

in particular we started the border art

workshop taiyev de arte fronteriso

and that workshop was composed of

artists from tijuana from mexico city

black artists asian artists white

artists

all that were working on the issue of

the border

so it the dynamics of coming together

on a regular basis dialoguing on our

exhibits

was really energizing to me it was like

going back to the early 70s and uh

i loved it and we would argue cry and

and come up with some installations some

exhibitions that we were actually

nominated to the venice vietnam in 1993

but one of the pieces the end of the

line that we did performance piece

right at the end of the fence between

tijuana and san diego

i developed these border stereotypes

and actually did the costumes in a

performance piece that we did right at

the beach

between tijuana we had audiences between

both cities

these stereotypes are still continue i

mean you know like the maid

it’s like women they cross the border

they of course they’re coming only to

to work in the white uh households

as maids although you know that’s not

true we have you know they

they work in all kinds of different jobs

so the stereotypes i did the costumes

first

actually did the performance and we did

a the last supper

uh with corn given to all the audience

you know uh the issue of the borders has

been in my work

in a lot of different ways i’ve been

continuously painting different things

and because the issues are continues to

be

going on uh in the most recent times

we’ve been working on the anastasio

hernandez rojas miro

and this mural is one of the largest

ones at the park

i was invited by american friends

you know organization here in san diego

and i got a chance to meet the widow of

anastasio

during that time i started an airbrush

class

at grossmont college one of the pieces

that we did

i i love this photograph of maria puga

the widow and so i asked some some of

the students to come in

and get involved with the issue and

and do an interview with maria at the

park

and i noticed the emotions of of my

students and i really love that because

i think that that’s what’s developed

into this mural

that has a very uh almost a spiritual

dimension to it and it’s dedicated

now for the 10th anniversary of his

murder he was

murdered by about 10 uh immigration

agents at the border

they tased them after he was handcuffed

kicked them and and just beat them the

mirror we’re hoping that

we will finish it um this year

being the this uh pandemic is

is really uh made a stop but um we are

we’re hopeful that we will continue

i think that it’s um somewhat strange to

actually

thank immigration for kicking me

and my family to mexico but

i think my attitudes that that still

survive now

at my age still prevail my inferiority

complex

that a lot of mexican people have in the

united states is not there

i i’ve i feel like i’ve surpassed that

my knowledge of mexico feeling like a

mexican

i feel like a mexican in mexico and a

u.s citizen

in the united states so i’m a citizen of

both countries

you know all those issues that we’ve

been battling

continue to be part of the of my work

currently and it’s in them

um you know it’s one of my one of the

reasons that i’m here today