Bienvenidos al Barrio Viejo
Welcome to the Old Neighborhood
The Tortilla flats Legacy Project Website is a digital compilation of the hard copy archives created from 1992-2022, documenting the Tortilla Flats neighborhood displaced in the late 1940’s-early 1950s when the 101 freeway was built through westside Ventura CA (the 1960s).
It contains the oral histories gathered from the neighborhood residents and the photos and drawings from which 3 monumental murals were created.
It contains media coverage and bureaucratic maneuverings of said murals. It contains the photo collection and identification of Tortilla Flats families and places – the ongoing efforts of the Tortilla Flats Legacy committee, as well as documentation of their many neighborhood reunions.
It is our intention that this website function as an educational tool, an inspiration for future oral history gathering, and historical documentation of what is lost in the course of social “progress.”
It is our desire that those exposed to this project recognize that history is made when individuals record and make art celebrating what happened to people and places.
Our message: Make your own History. The technological power to document is in everyone’s hands, much more so than when we started in 1993. Don’t wait for others to recognize what you believe is important to archive.
Mural Projects
First Mural 1992-1995
The Tortilla Flats Mural and Reunion Project first presented publicly in the form of a neighborhood reunion in 1994, @ Nicholby’s Nightclub, and a 6 ’tall x 507’ long mural by Hanrahan and Mora 1995. This first mural was located on Figueroa Street across from the Ventura County Fairgrounds.
Second Mural 2008
Location: 1903 building 2 West Main, West Main St., and South Ventura Ave. Ventura CA 93001, the east-facing exterior wall.
Designed by Moses Mora and MB Hanrahan; painted by MB Hanrahan
We painted the mural with acrylic paints, on Polytab. Polytab is a synthetic nonwoven material that one can paint on and then affix to walls or other surfaces at another time. The mural panels were then affixed to the wall with acrylic gel.
Tortilla Flats Legacy Mural 2020
In the course of collecting oral histories, (we had yet to make a drawing or put paint to a wall,) we decided to use the 1500$ grant money to throw what turned out to be the first Tortilla Flats Reunion, in Nicholby’s Nightclub, then located on the corner of Oak and Main Sts., downtown Ventura. We brought Lalo Alcaraz, (sp?), a cross-over Mexican American favorite of the residents’ era, to perform at what became an annual reunion event that continues today.
Last Exit Exhibit at the Ventura County Museum
In 1993, I was completing the Avenue Liquor mural on Ventura Ave.(-a community mural, now destroyed, with quite a story of its own!) Moses came by and started painting. Also working on the mural was an African American artist who was doing research on early African American families in Ventura Co. Her name is Yvonne Sutton.
Moses was telling her about the Tortilla Flats neighborhood and families he knew of. I was listening to the stories, and, being a transplant from LA, I had never heard of the Tortilla Flats neighborhood- a neighborhood displaced when the 101 freeway was extended through Ventura Co. I remember saying something like “ that story needs to be a mural!”
About the Project
What Happened?
The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, also known as the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, was enacted on June 29, 1956, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the bill into law. With an original authorization of $25 billion for the construction of 41,000 miles (66,000 km) of the Interstate Highway System over a 10-year period, it was the largest public works project in American history through that time.
History
Between 1956 and 1966 the construction of our major highways demolished 37,000 urban housing units per year, displacing hundreds of thousands in our cities across the country.
Decisions Made
Highway planners and engineers were unsympathetic to the expertise and authority they had over communities during a time when their power rose from reforms in highway policy.
Progress?
The Bureau of Public Roads was made up of mostly middle-aged white men and is what allowed federal engineers to forge a national highway policy that worked with the National Interstate and Highway Defense Act and solidified the authority of those engineers.