Ocotlan Special Edition – Part Four

Bringing It Home: U.S. earnings mean better life for Melgozas in Mexico

Photography: Greg A. Cooper
Story: M.E. Sprengelmeyer – Staff Writer
Reprint by Permission Ventura County Star
April 6, 1997

OCOTLAN, Mexico – For Ana and Jose Luis Melgoza, a dream retirement is finally becoming a reality 1,400 miles south of the border.

After 30 years of building a family and a business in Ventura County, they’ve settled back here in Ana’s hometown.

“We’re still building our dream,” Jose Melgoza said, sitting in a custom home loaded with extras they couldn’t have afforded back in the United States.

Jose Luis Melgoza, left, talks with Oxnard Firefighter Bill Gallaher, seated, and former Oxnard Fire Chief Manuel Perez during the Oxnard delegation’s visit to its sister city of Ocotlan.

Octolan and Oxnard share a large number of families, including Melgoza’s that have split time between both places.

Returning to Mexico was always a part of the plan for the Melgozas. Like thousands of other Mexican immigrants to the United States, they worked their way into the American middle class with the ultimate aim of building a better life back in Mexico.

Straddling the border has changed the way they look at the two countries and how they see themselves.

Take the Melgozas’ 22-year-old son, Jose Luis Jr.

He was born in Fillmore, lived there all his life and stayed behind when his parents and sister, Viridiana, moved back to Mexico last summer. Still, he describes himself as homesick for his parents’ country and thinks of following them there eventually.

“I’m full-blooded Mexican, even though I was born here,” he said. “Sometimes I wish I was born over there. Unfortunately, I was born here. My whole family’s over there. It’s just the way that I feel.”

The Melgozas’ story has a typical beginning.

Jose Luis Sr. was born in the state of Michoachan and Ana was raised here in Ocotlan, 60 miles south of Guadalajara. Both of their families took them to Ventura County in the 1960s, when they were in their teens.

They started in menial jobs. Jose picked lemons, and Ana worked as a seamstress, stitching together brassieres in a factory.

They met at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Santa Paula, married and started a family in Fillmore. Jose took a new job at a factory that made Plexiglas windows. Later, he worked for Mr. Spa in Camarillo, making hot tubs and Jacuzzis.

The family saved money, and when Jose was laid off in the mid-1980s they decided to go into business for themselves. They opened The Melgoza Family Restaurant on Seventh Street near downtown Oxnard and started serving up such Jalisco specialties as birria de chivo, or goat stew.

With the two kids helping in the restaurant, they put away money for a piece of land back in Ocotlan. Slowly, they started building their retirement home. They even bought a fancy Jacuzzi like the ones Jose used to make in Camarillo.

Last summer, they sold the restaurant to a friend and headed south. They live in a white, two-story house built right up to the sidewalk in front, with a patio and fruit trees in a courtyard. The split-level master bedroom has a balcony that gives them an evening view of the neon cross atop the central plaza’s church, El Templo Maximo Ocotlense del Senor de la Misericordia.

Jose is toying with moneymaking ideas to keep himself busy. Kids in the plaza wash cars for a few pesos while people shop, but Jose figures there might be room for an American-style mobile car wash. Ana and Viri plan to open a small beauty salon in the front of the house.

“Over there (in the United States), there are people who are slaves to their jobs. Here, they’re not lazy, but there is less pressure,” Jose said. “If you have money back there, you’ll do better here.”

The Melgozas have set aside a room for Jose Jr. and his wife, Graciela, when they come to visit, or even stay. The couple married last year and still live in the Melgozas’ Fillmore home. An architect’s sketch of the Ocotlan dream house hangs in their living room.

A midnight view of La Plaza de Octlan – the town’s center, both geographically and socially.

The city’s main church, “El Templo Maximo Ocotlense del Senor de la Misericordia,” towers in the background, its steeples topped by red neon crosses.

Photo:
Greg A. Cooper

Jose Jr. is a mechanic in Santa Paula. He met his wife at night school. He later learned she was raised just up the road from Ocotlan and her mother was born there.

Jose Jr. said he misses his family terribly but understands their decision to go home again. However, it might not be for him.

“I’ve lived in Fillmore all my life,” he said. “It would be hard to leave here and never come back.”

[Part Three] [Part Five]