When one thinks of Humboldt County, the Pacific Ocean and looming redwoods are the predominant images that surface, not ethnic diversity.
However, there are quite a few distinct cultures and ethnic communities hidden away within the county.
These cultures range from the Portuguese in Ferndale to the Laotians in Eureka. Although these communities have vastly different cultures, they do share a common concern: the preservation of the customs and traditions of the ethnic communities in Humboldt County. This concern creates a common bond among the individual communities.
Several members of ethnic communities in Humboldt County were interviewed for this story. The vast range of cultural diversity makes it difficult to include every cultural community, or even all the different individual views within each community. Thus, the opinions and groups represented here are only a partial reflection of the diversity within Humboldt County.
From one generation to another
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| Photo by Molly Taylor |
Ida Toste, a second generation Portuguese-American, posts photos of her grandchildren on her refrigerator. |
Toste said that when her father came to Ferndale, there was already a thriving community of Portuguese immigrants who had been in Ferndale since the 1890s.
Toste, 74, said that most of Humboldt County's Portuguese community originated from the Azores Islands of Tersata and San Jorge. The Azores are a group of nine islands in the Atlantic Ocean, about 800 miles off the coast of Portugal.
She said the islands were getting too crowded for young people to start their own families. As a result, groups primarily composed of single men came to America with a knowledge of hard work and farming. This knowledge of farming is what made the Eel River Valley and its dairies a good fit for her father and others, she said.
Once her father had saved enough money, he sent it home to her mother so she could come to be with him.
The Portuguese in Ferndale were a tight-knit community, according to Toste. Fraternal organizations formed lodges to help immigrants develop friends and have a support system in case of an illness striking a family. These lodges became the primary gathering places of the community.
Toste recalled that every Saturday night, the families would come into town to shop for the week and visit with each other. The men and women would gather in separate lodges. "The fellows would meet at Robert's Hall [now Portuguese Hall] and talk about organizing events, but mostly just to visit each other and talk about the old times back in the Azores," she said.
Toste said that today there is dwindling interest in the customs and traditions among the Portuguese-American community in the area. She said she thinks this is due to the fact that the majority of this group are third and fourth generation and "these are busy times we live in."
She is admittedly saddened about some of the customs dying out, as well as the loss of the use of the Portuguese language in the community. However, she said the community still celebrates its heritage every May in the form of the Holy Ghost Festival.
Loretta Alexander, also the daughter of Portuguese immigrants, helps organize the event and said the community celebrates with traditional food and dance, and selects a junior and senior queen. Next year will be the 75th anniversary of the celebration. Toste said that this event is one way in which the community's ancestry is being passed on.
"Now that us in the second generation are getting older, we can't make all of the preparations for the festival because we get tired easily," she said. "So now the younger people are doing a lot of it."
I used to be able to count them on my hand
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"When I came up here, I was working. I helped someone else move up here from the city by getting them a job. This person helped someone else who eventually helped another come up here and a chain started." -- Apollonio Romero |
"We have quite a population of Hispanics in Humboldt County now, a whole lot more than when I came here," he said. "I used to know everybody in the [Hispanic] community. Now nobody knows me."
Romero, 60, recalled that a couple of families in the area date back to the 1920s. He said he thinks the influx of Hispanics in the area is due to a "chain" he and others started years ago.
He said he believes that strong family ties have been formed because of this "chain," creating a tight-knit community.
"The uncle has helped the nephew, who has helped a cousin," he said. "This just makes the community pretty family oriented."
The influx has helped the county, in Romero's opinion. "Getting new people up here, who are bringing the desire to work hard and better themselves, is good medicine for the community," he said. "It helps the economy and lets people help themselves."
Romero said he believes that in addition to the strong family ties, the shared culture has also strengthened the community's bond.
"It is very important to keep our culture and traditions alive," the Fortuna resident said. "During Cinco de Mayo and Independence Day, we try to dress, dance and cook in our regional ways."
Latinos Unidos celebrates the independence of Mexico from Spain every Sept. 16. The group puts on having a dance that serves as an opportunity for the community to get together.
You don't have to leave your culture behind
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"Maybe we had to leave our native land, but that doesn't mean that we have to leave our culture's ways behind."
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Khanthavong, who fled Laos in 1980 due to fear of political persecution, said that many Laotians in the area practice their native customs in everyday life. This allows them to pass on their traditions to the next generation born in America. He said that most members of the community prepare traditional foods all the time.
Khanthavong, president of the Humboldt County Laotian Community Organization, said that the community also celebrates the Laotian New Year each year around May. Since the date changes, different cities in California celebrate on different days as a way to provide opportunity to travel and share in each city's festivities.
"During this time we get together and get to see people we know from other cities," Khanthavong said. "Often we know them from back in Laos, so it is a time when we can reminisce on the past and remember our homeland."
Khanthavong said that members of this community have strong connections with each other because they share a common experience of leaving their homeland and coping with an area and society completely foreign to them.
"Obviously there's the language barrier, but there are other things that often go overlooked," he said. "The laws are different here, as are the ways of schooling and what society says is wrong and right."
Khanthavong said he also thinks that people tend to mistakenly categorize Laotians with other Asian ethnic groups.
"There is a misconception locally, that we share the same customs as the Hmong community," he said. "The Laotian culture and Hmong culture are about as different as ours is from American culture. Yet most people think we have the same views and traditions."
He said he would like to see his grandchildren's children still practicing traditions and knowing about their cultural heritage.
Regardless of where you're from, you're Hmong
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"Regardless of where you're from, you're Hmong and you're welcome and respected by Hmong people, whether they know you or not." -- Bakuda Ly |
While the Hmong people are from Laos, they differ in ethnic background from Laotians. The Hmong live in the hills of Northern Laos and have different customs and traditions from the mainstream Laotian culture.
One significant difference is their new year celebration. While the Laotian New Year is in May, the Hmong New Year is towards the end of November. Ly, an Arcata resident, said the New Year festivities celebrate the harvest and serve as a cleansing of the past year's misfortunes.
Ly, who came to the area to go to college, said the local community welcomed her and is also very open to American culture. She said the acceptance she has received from the Hmong community in Humboldt County is shared among Hmong communities throughout the country.
Time can't take away the bond
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"There might not have been a lot of us back then, but it was more of a tight-knit community. Now, there's nowhere near the closeness." -- A.V. Powell |
Powell said that in the past, the African American population was a lot more concentrated, not so much in where they lived, but where they worked. "A lot of blacks, including myself, worked at mills, so we got to know each other a lot better," he said. "Now blacks have integrated into all forms of occupation in the area and many of the mills have closed, so the bonds just don't develop."
He said he also thinks that there's been an influx of African Americans into the area who haven't sought out the people that have been in the county for a long time.
Powell, who came to Eureka from Los Angeles, said he remembers that what is now the Old Town area, used to be primarily African American.
"Most of the stores and night clubs were run by blacks. It was in the early '70s when the government came up with a lot of redevelopment grants, that Old Town, as it's called now, came to be," he said.
Although Humboldt's African American community isn't as close as it used to be, Powell said that he gets to see and talk to many of his old friends during events sponsored by the NAACP, such as the Charles Washington Annual Soul Food Dinner, which was held on Memorial Day Weekend this year.
"I think there will always be a bond between us old-timers who have been in the area a long time, and that is something that time can't take away," he said.
To preserve and promote our culture
Long before HSU was even a teacher training college, the area known as Humboldt County composed the ancestral lands of many Native American tribes. These include the Karauk, Hoopa, Tolowa, Wiyot and Yurok peoples.
The Yurok tribe, as do other tribes, maintains its sovereignty. The preamble of the tribe's constitution reads:
"We adopt this constitution in order to preserve and promote our culture, language and religious beliefs and practices, and pass them on to our children, our grandchildren and to their children and grandchildren, on and on forever."
Culture is so important to the Yurok Tribe that it is included in the preamble of its constitution because, as Thomas Gates, director of the Yurok cultural department, said, "It's got to do with Yurok identity. Without that culture, there's little else that distinguishes Yurok from anyone else."
Enrolled members of the Yurok tribe have five separate programs within the cultural department working to preserve their heritage, which includes passing on their language, performing archaeological surveys, mapping survey sites and negotiating with museums to regain possession of cultural artifacts.
As director of the cultural department, Gates is also the heritage preservation officer. The job was created when the state Historical Preservation Act was amended in 1992 to maintain Native American sovereignty. In other words, the tribe, and not the state government, now decides which lands have historical value to the Yuroks.
This law created a need for an archaeological department, which is responsible for looking into the consequences of projects proposed to take place on Yurok land, such as constructing a new building or making a new road. If a significant historical site, such as a burial ground, is found where the proposal is set to take place, the plans are made to go around the site, rather than excavate.
The Yurok are also trying to teach the Algonquin-based language, which is only known by about 30 people, who are all over 70. Students who are learning and acquiring teaching credentials were chosen to participate in an apprentice model program.
In addition to the value of sovereignty, Leona Wilkenson of the Wiyot tribe knows the value of her culture. She has been a basket weaver for nine years. Though she said she can only give her own views about being a Native American, it's clear what it means to her.
She would like the Wiyot language to be known again. Since it was not taught to her when she was a child because it was ridiculed, it took prodding from her sister before she learned how to weave baskets and set out to teach others of her people.
"The language part is really hard because we only have it on tapes and books," Wilkenson said.
