Russell City, first schoolhouse (1895), Hayward Area Historical Society

Project Title: Russell City: Our Voices, Our Selves
Recipient Organization: Hayward Area Historical Society
Lead Artist: María Ochoa
Genre and Date Awarded: Literary Arts, June 2001
To Be Presented: June 2004

Through a collaboration with the Hayward Area Historical Society, writer María Ochoa is creating a book about the patterns of immigration shaping the cultural complexity of Hayward, California. The book will documents the ways that Russell City, a small town now incorporated into the city of Hayward, came to be an important arrival point for immigrants coming to the Bay Area from within and outside of the United States. Ochoa’s focus is on “uncovering the invisible personal histories of everyday people of color and their contributions to the rich cultural heritage of the Bay Area,” and “Russell City; Our Voices, Our Selves,” should contribute to making such histories visible. The Historical Society’s archives on Russell City, which were developed and enhanced through an exhibition in 2001, serves as a basis for background and contact information for the writer’s project.

The finished work will be a narrative accompanying a series of oral histories. By focusing on the vernacular, the day-to-day happenings in people’s lives, the book presents multiple points of view representing a social history of the area; and because the story the author wishes to capture is the story of a community, many of the interviews will be conducted in group settings. In this way, as multiple recollections are drawn upon, Ochoa finds a rich texture emerges in the storytelling.

The City of Hayward celebrated its 125^th anniversary on March 31, 2001. A small Bay side township in the middle of Alameda County, Russell City existed between 1853 and 1964 on the West Side of what is now known as Hayward. During its 100 years of existence, it served as the arrival point for diverse cultural groups, among them Spaniards, Danes, Germans, Swiss, Italians, African Americans and Mexican Americans. The collaborators’ book will reflect on four themes, tracing Russell City’s significance as an agricultural center, as the site of important religious institutions, as a source of cultural production, and as an arrival point for immigrants. The timing for collecting the oral histories is critical in that many of the former residents of Russell City, who lived through its rapid growth during the 1930s and 1940s and its decline in the 1950s and 1960s, are now senior citizens.

Participants interviewed for the book will be invited to review the manuscript in progress to confirm its accuracy. A newsletter update about the project was issued twice during the manuscript’s development, to keep participants engaged in the project. The finished work will be a 100-page bound book including between eight and 12 black and white photographs, and produced in a limited edition of 500 copies. It will presented by the Historical Society at a public reception, and sold through the Society’s museum shop. Proceeds from the book sales will benefit the development and maintenance of archival materials in the Society’s collection.

María Ochoa has worked as a writer of arts-based oral histories for more than ten years. Her past writing projects include a published set of oral histories from a weaving cooperative in Los Ojos, New Mexico, as well as histories from members of literary, visual, and performance arts organizations throughout Northern California. She was co-editor of a special edition journal, “Enunciating Our Terms: Women of Color in Collaboration and Conflict,” published by the Center for Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her Creative Collaborations: A Study of Chicana Artistic Expressiveness was published by the University of New Mexico Press. Maria is a long-time Hayward resident.

The Hayward Area Historical Society and Museum is more than forty years old. It has developed a comprehensive and diverse approach to telling the region’s history, managing a downtown museum containing exhibits, a library, and a corner store, and the restored McConaghy House. Currently the society and Hayward Area Parks and Recreation Department are restoring the historic home of William Meel, one of the first pioneers of commercial agriculture in Alameda County. Among other public programs, the Society offers educational programs for local schools, a membership programs, and docent tours of historic regional sites. For this project, in additional to providing administrative support for this project, it is hosting the oral history interviews and assisting the writer with her research.

Russell City Country Club, where West Coast blues music was played, Hayward Area Historical Society

María Ochoa is a writer who teaches at San José State University in the Department of Social Science. Her research interests are women of color in the U.S., creative expressiveness, and oral history methodologies. She was previously the executive director of a visual arts center, served as Visiting Assistant Professor of Art at Stanford University, and was an affiliated fellow with the Stanford Center for Chicano Research. Her book, Creative Collectives: A Study of Chicana Artistic Expression . She is a contributing writer to the reference book Latinas in the United States: An Historical Encyclopedia; her entries are focused on Latina artists. Ochoa’s writing about film legend Rita Hayworth (AKA: Margarita Carmen Cansino) is set for publication in the anthology From Bananas to Buttocks: Latina Bodies in Popular Culture. As co-founder of the Research Cluster for Study of Women of Color at the Center for Cultural Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, she co-edited the publication Enunciating Our Terms: Women of Color in Conflict and Collaboration.

Funding from the San Francisco based Creative Work Fund permits her to collect the oral histories of people who lived in the mid-Alameda County town of Russell City for a book length project. Ochoa is focusing on the stories of the people, predominantly Mexicans and African Americans who, between 1930 and 1960, came to call Russell City home. Ochoa is a mentor of community college students affiliated with the Puente Project. Her work in women’s organizations includes serving as the Co-Chair for the National Network of Women’s Funds and as Chairperson of the Alameda County Commission on the Status of Women. In 1999, she was named “Woman of the Year” by the California State Assembly for her contributions to the visual arts. She and her husband, Michael Sweeney, enjoy hiking, weight training, and Oakland A’s baseball, and live in Hayward with cat companions Mr. B and Rosie.

Russell City’s second train depot, Hayward Area Historical Society