User:Bellakaye
Bonnie G. Kelm Ph.D. Author & Researcher, Retired University Art Museum Director and Associate Professor of Art History, University of California, Santa Barbara, 2002-2006 ( retired on disabiltiy) , The College of William & Mary 1996-2002, Miami University (Ohio) 1987-1996, Franklin University, Columbus, OH 1977-87
Publication: Jim Campos, Bonnie Kelm, Dave Moore, Tom Moore, and the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History- GREATER CARPINTERIA, SUMMERLAND AND LA CONCHITA, San Francisco: Arcadia Publishing, Inc. 2009.
Curated Exhibition: La Conchita: Reclaiming Its Past. Opened at the Carpinteria Valley Museum of History- opened on 9/18/2010 and closed on 9/18/2011.(1) The exhibition featured over 300 archival photos the majority of which had never been seen before. These photos & documents as well came from the families of the first generation of settlers in La Conchita after it was abandoned by wealthy speculators and their failed attempt at "La Conchita Del Mar" in 1923.(2) At that point, by the way for all the bantering on this page officially according to Ventura County La Conchita was still known as Punta. The exhibition also featured segments from 24 oral histories that I conducted with the "La Conchita Elders" as I have called them. My research on this community started in 2003. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to record most of their stories.(3) Only one was hand written rather than recorded. They have all passed on now. These people were the first generation of children to grow up in La Conchita in the late 1920s and stayed in this community all this time. They are the testimony to the American dream. This was a place nobody wanted. There was no running water. However, poor Filipino dirt farmers, Mexican railroad workers and blue collar white oil workers none of whom could afford to buy land anywhere else saw it as opportunity. They were accustomed to doing everything with nothing. They built a close knit integrated community where there was total equality and as each of them told me when I interviewed them they didn't know what prejudice was until they left La Conchita.(4). This community was to become the only working to middle class community on the so called Gold Coast of central California an area dominated by millionaire beach properties.
Philanthropist Robert Bates whose encouraged his ranch hands to buy land in La Conchita did more than that. He saw the Utopia he believed in with these children all coming to the one room Punta Gorda schoolhouse, most of them barefoot. He convinced the Ventura School system to let Punta have its own school board. Robert Bates became the President and one of the mothers in the community Margaret Hughes became Vice President in 1930. During the 1930s Bates poured his own money into the school and even with one teacher teaching 6 grades the level of learning was astounding.(5) He had band costumes made for the children who all learned how to play musical instruments, paid for their two day trip to the 1938 World Exposition in San Fransisco, and created an advanced multi cultural curriculm.(6)
Additionally, what this wealth of documentation also produced is proof that prior to the mud slide of 1995 there were NO SLIDES IN THE COMMUNITY WE NOW CALL LA CONCHITA. Testimony of at least 20 different people who have lived there non stop since 1930. There were slides about one half a mile north of La Conchita, in the same place that buried the train in 1911. That they always insist was in La Conchita too, but if you are familiar with the terarrain & where the train passes through La Conchita unless your totally ignorant of the area you have to realize it's not possible for a slide to bury a train in La Conchita. It's not even close to the mountain there. We come back to the fact that La Conchita's name was taken from the name of the railroad spur between Bates Road & Mussel Shoals. The railroad spur was called La Conchita. Punta inherited the name La Conchita from the failed beachfront development project "La Conchita del Mar."This may come as a total shock to most people but even though La Conchita has had its name for many years now its been unofficial until very recently. Ventura County granted this community La Conchita as its official name in 2006! I am currently working on a book working title La Conchita: Against All Odds,A Different Kind of Paradise . As I have obtained more documents from the Bates family, 1930s film footage and now have over 400 photographs covering 1927-1959
Please note tomorrow I will upload documents & photos