IN THE SHADOW OF THE GRAPEVINES
By Diana Marcum
Fresno Bee, CA
09/15/07 01:09:28
Tiny Del Rey has few jobs and housing is poor, but residents feel
safe in town.
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DEL REY — This town didn’t die. By most measures its day is done. The
bars, the bank, the gas station, the doctor’s office and about every
other downtown business, save for three mini-marts and an auto repair
shop, are long gone.
But tiny Del Rey — on the way to nowhere else, ringed by vineyards
even as growth from Valley cities creeps ever closer — survives
on intangibles rooted in its past. There are few jobs, and housing
is poor.
Nevertheless, many residents say they are grateful to live in this
impoverished farm town just southwest of Sanger.
That the town of 950 exists at all is testament that, amid all the
pavement, tract homes and national-brand neon signs of a growing
suburbia, there are still hidden pockets of an old agricultural valley.
Harry Gomez, 63, waters a patch that’s more dirt than grass in front
of an empty two-story brick hotel his father bought on Del Rey’s main
street. The windows that aren’t boarded over are busted, including
the one that frames a shrine of fake flowers, a small Virgin Mary,
Christmas lights and a black eagle — emblem of the United Farm
Workers union.
"You’ve heard of Cesar Chavez, right?" asks Gomez.
"Well, he stayed in that room. He organized there."
To Gomez — whose wardrobe of T-shirts are all off-color odes to
beer or women — Del Rey’s glory days were back in his teens when
the packinghouses and the bars were full.
"It was exciting and how. So many people, peaches and raisins. The
bars were action-packed. But a lot of people used to get stabbed and
who you gonna call?
There was no cop here. So they closed the bars."
Del Rey’s history is no one-way slant from prosperity to ruin. There
were times of peace and jobs and community, times of trouble and
injustice. In the 1940s, Japanese farming families clustered near Del
Rey were rounded up and sent to relocation camps for the duration of
World War II.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Fresno County sheriff’s deputies
raided businesses in search of illegal immigrants, manhandling
scores of people into vans. Some of the people arrested were second-
and third-generation Americans. One woman miscarried. A man’s arm
was broken.
Through it all, the town retained a sense of community and a sense
of separation from the outside.
The ethnicity of the characters changed — Armenian, Danish, Japanese,
Mexican — but the story remained the same: a group of people somehow
defined by the fields and sky around them. It was a place emblematic
of America’s most romantic vision of agriculture: small farms,
small villages.
Most old-timers point to Del Rey’s darkest days as the 1980s and early
1990s when packinghouses closed, farms weathered crisis from drought
and water reform, and rising crime forced residents to start locking
their doors.
But longtime residents say that Del Rey is in a renaissance of spirit
— even though many families still work in the fields and struggle
financially.
"People are living in shacks. [But] they have their houses paid for and
they don’t want to think about anything better," says Mary Ambriz, 65,
who worked at the town’s Bank of America branch for 29 years. People
point to Ambriz as the town’s unofficial mayor, because she’s involved
in everything from helping seniors to organizing parades.
"Right now, Del Rey is heading a little up. It’s like we realized
there’s no other town like this," Ambriz says. "We know each other’s
stories. We know each other’s parents’ stories. There’s friendship
and respect, and we’re still surrounded by the grapes."
Most of the families in Del Rey today are somehow related to the
Ramirez, Romo, Reina or Garcia families — migrant fieldworkers who
three generations ago put down roots and stayed.
Ambriz’s father, Joe Romo, built Joe’s Place, a bar and billiard hall
that houses a mini-mart run by a Punjabi family from Kingsburg.
"That was the days before regulations. He got four of his friends
and they just built the place. After that, we stayed in one place. No
more following the crops," Ambriz says. "My father and mother never
left Del Rey.
They stayed here until they died. I’ll never leave Del Rey."
Gerald Chooljian, president of Del Rey Packing, also thinks the
struggling town is making quiet strides forward.
"There’s over 100 years of my family history in Del Rey," says
Chooljian. "I miss the old-old Del Rey.
We’ve lost so much. We lost Rachel’s Cafe … and farmers around the
table drinking coffee in the mornings.
"But over the past eight to 10 years, I noticed people taking care
of their yards. There’s the good feeling of everybody knowing each
other. There’s something here.
"It got lost for a while, but it’s coming back."
Gerald’s father, Carl Chooljian, who died in July, was born in Del
Rey. His packinghouse at one time or another employed most of the
people in Mary Ambriz’s generation.
Ambriz says everyone called Carl Chooljian " ‘the godfather,’ but in
a good way."
"He could look pretty gruff, but he had the best heart. That’s maybe
why the old-time system is still in play. There’s old families that
have old loyalties to each other."
Gerald Chooljian says he recently realized that the growth Del Rey
failed to achieve had saved its essence.
"I’ve been here all my life, and that can make it hard to see what’s
around you," he says. "But when I really look, I see that what
surrounds us didn’t change. I see grape vineyards. I see old houses
that might need some work, but are still beautiful.
"I see a different place than Sanger or Selma or any other Valley
town. I don’t see Taco Bell or Wal-Mart.
I see people who work too hard for too little money, but there’s a
good feeling of everybody knowing everybody."
The only growth — a few blocks of self-help homes built about five
years ago on the south side of town — did bring new faces. They
include 14-year-old skateboarder Angelica Pimentel, whose family
moved from Parlier.
"It’s really, really different here," she says. "But it’s pretty cool
once you get used to it."
Angelica says she’s trying to organize Del Rey’s 14 skateboarders. She
says she’s going to write a petition asking for permission to build
ramps and get everyone in town to sign it.
In the evenings, life in Del Rey plays out in front yards and on the
streets. On a recent Wednesday, a recording of church bells played
over a P.A. system calling worshippers to a Mass in Spanish at St.
Katherine’s Catholic Church.
Best friends Esmerelda Jalindo and Katie Garcia, both 15, walked to
the church.
Katie used to live in Sanger, a city with stores and gas stations
and restaurants, but she says she feels more herself in Del Rey.
"I walk out and everybody’s like ‘hi.’ They’re happy and they’re
joyful. In the evenings the guys and girls ride their bikes, kids
start running around, people go to the park."
Esmerelda dreams of being an actress on "CSI" but still moving back
to Del Rey — where she feels safe — to build her mansion.
"There’s lots and lots of fields all around us," she says. "It pretty
much gives us a shield."
The school, the church and two of the stores — all of Del Rey’s
institutions — are on the same street.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
