Bike Tour in the USA (2007), Part 9

In the Backyard of Los Angeles

Coastal Highway 1→Ventura

Distance: 104.02 km, Duration: 5:07:44 hrs, Total: 285.65km

Originally this land belonged to the Chumash Native American People who lived in three environments: the interior, the coast and the Northern Channel Islands. These provided a diverse array  of materials to support the Chumash lifestyle. The closer a village was to the ocean the greater its reliance to maritime resources. Due to the advanced canoe designs coastal and island people could procure fish and aquatic mammals from farther out. Shellfish were a good source of nutrition relatively easy to find and abundant.

Chumash Native American People

 (http://www.theamericanhistory.org/the-chumash-indians.html)

The land was taken away by the Spanish discoverer and explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo for the Crown of Spain in 1542. During the Californian Mission Period (1769-1833) the plain was administered by the Mission of San Buenaventura or short Ventura.

Much of the Chumash's population was diminished to Old World diseases brought over by the Europeans. The settlement of the Spanish also devastated the Chumash culture. The Chumash reservation, established in 1901, encompasses 127 acres. Since the last speaker died in 1965 no native Chumash speak their own language. Today are 5,000 members of this tribe. (wikipedia)

In 1897 Henry Oxnard was enticed to build a sugar beet factory in the plain inland of Port Hueneme. The new factory and the surrounding land attracted Chinese, Japanese and Mexican workers which led to the foundation of a settlement. A new town emerged, commemorated as Henry T. Oxnard Historic District. Oxnard intended to name the settlement after the Greek word for sugar 'zachari' but frustrated by bureaucracy he named it after himself (wikipedia).

Before and after the II. World War the navel bases of Port Mugu and Port Hueneme on the coast were built, the only harbors between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The development of a military aviation and communication industry led to the influx of Anglo-American in this area. 

As I cycled direction Oxnard I discovered a field of red and green pepper beside the road. I stopped and watched Mexican worker harvested with swift hands the vegetables and threw them into a white plastic containers. When it was full they ran (!) with the containers in the center aisle of the field, threw them on a wooden pallet at the end of the field. With an empty container they ran (!) back to their previous place and continued picking with a frantic speed. The full pallet was moved with a forklift onto a ready truck. 

Peppers loaded on a Truck

It might be the pepper harvesting season because not much later I passed another field where Mexican hands packed pepper in brown cartons.

Packing Pepper in Cartons

The land is agricultural for a long stretch, field are lined with fields as long a the eye can see. I even passed a strawberry field, my most favorite fruit of them all. The sweet smell of the red fruit let me truly cycle in the 7th strawberry heaven. In fact 1/3 of all Californian strawberries are grown in Oxnard and for good reasons the homepage advertised with the slogan 'California's Strawberry Coast'. 

Notice the Mexican Hat of the Driver of the Farm Tractor on the American Sign!

But should the strawberries be harvested in the same way like the pepper described above my appetite for them will surely be lost. Seeing these running workers with my own eyes I can not see any change in working conditions compared to the cotton pickers during the slave era in the USA. I hope America farmers can pay reasonable salaries to legal workers some day. Salary is a form of respect for the work done by others! I am sure these changes will not happen under the Trump administration...

As the sun burned merciless from heaven I got lost somehow. Beside the road I discovered a lemon plantation and picked up some still good fruit from the floor and squeezed some juice out of them into one empty bottle. It was refreshing and not sour at all!

The Las Posas Road lead me the the E. Hueneme Road, from there I finally came to a Mexican supermarket. Because of the heat I bought an ice cream and something to eat (US$6.00). I sat on the floor beside the shop door, a porch gave me shade. As I licked on my ice cream I recognized a group of handicapped people going into the door of the next building. Watching closely I discovered a sign saying of a community center serving the handicapped and unemployed.

Water Irrigation on a field

(to be continued)