Ocon Family Portrait. Photograph of Tony, Tito, Ben, and Phil (back row: left to right) and Paul, Antonio, Sam, Catalina, and Becky Ocon (front: left to right). 1963.
Anchor Baby Anchors the Family in the America of the 1960’s
There was a bump in the night and Antonio grabbed the gun underneath his pillow and began waving it around in delirium. He began shouting to call out the intruder and proceeded to wake up the rest of the family. His mother comes running out of her apartment in the back of the house and proceeds to desperately tell Antonio to put down the gun. “Go to America,” she said, and so goes the story of how my family crossed the border so rapidly and so suddenly.[1] Death threats were found in the mail and every night was as stressful as that last one. Mexican politics were tense, and they were tenser for the politicians on the controversial side— the politician was Antonio Ocon, my grandfather.
The Ocon clan used my abuelita’s relatives to get sponsorship to California and quickly learned to assimilate. This was the 1950s so the only mode for an immigrant family to thrive was to no longer be an immigrant family; the goal was to be as American as possible.[2] 1960 hits and Paul is born— my dad, the anchor baby. He arrived just in time to witness a series of historic events that would anchor the family into American history.
They were a new family in America just looking for an American identity, and at the time, there was nothing more American than obsessing over the Kennedys. In 1963, President Kennedy was assassinated. The Ocon’s grieved like they lost a member of the family. The family stopped speaking Spanish and even dropped the accent from their name. They were Americans, from that moment on. Shortly after, Tony, the eldest, joined the Vietnam war. And just as so many American families judged and turned away their family members who joined the war movement, so did baby Kathy, the youngest, upon her brother’s return. Tiny infant at the time, Kathy took one look at his military uniform and slammed the door in his face.[3] They were Americans and that is all anyone needed to know.
In 1966, my dad sat upon the roof of their small trailer house and watched as Cesar E. Chavez marched through the neighborhood streets. It was the March for Justice in the Fields that brought waves of farmers across California. My dad was only five years old at the time but that memory sticks in his brain as he sat a part of that historical moment for farming reform and farmer’s rights. As a Mexican family, Chavez was an important figure of Mexican identity and American politics. That march bridged those identities for the Ocon clan and allowed them to exist as Mexicans in America while still being Americans in every definition.
As the events of the 1960s defined the American heart of the Ocons, their surroundings were also marred by the events of the 60s. In August of 1965, riots broke out in Watts due to an act of unfair racial profiling by the police. These events deeply affected the black community in LA as well as the Hispanic community. As my dad moved to West Covina in the early 70s and began going to middle school, the gang culture became noticeably affected by the events of the Watts riots. “Imagine West Side Story but with more Hispanics,” is how my dad explains the gang culture.[4] East LA was a turf war for each minority group. As the start of the 60s was a time of unification of immigrants into Americanized society, the Watts Riots shattered that, and groups were divided by racial and cultural identity.[5] The Ocons remained passionate to be members of American society but after the death of Antonio in the 70s, the family returned to Mexican comforts and company.
This is the story of a family who sought shelter in America and became as American as possible. They were participants in the heart of 60’s American politics and lived through the 60s just as any other American family. As the 60s came to a close, the racial implications of Los Angeles grew to be at the forefront of their lives. Gang culture and racial divisions were a growing norm and the pressure for unification and rapid Americanization was less of a priority. Nativism grew and time went on. This is a story of my family and how they struggled in a game of tug of war between their Mexican heritage and the pressure to fit in at a time where Americanization was the only option. I see this struggle reign true even today as many of my cousins and myself try to connect to our Mexican roots. Some of my uncles share information willingly but others just want to remember the past as the past and move forward as the Americans they sought to be when they first crossed the border. Even our last name is a contested representation of this battle of identity. We are the Ocòns to some family members but just Ocon to others. The Spanish origins of our name are buried under an Irish pronunciation and no one is the wiser.
Works Cited
Gutiérrez, Henry J. “Racial Politics in Los Angeles: Black and Mexican American Challenges to Unequal Education in the 1960s.” Southern California Quarterly 78, no. 1 (1996): 51–86. https://doi.org/10.2307/41171794.
Sanchez, George J. “Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century America.” The International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (1997): 1009–30. https://doi.org/10.2307/2547422.
Ocon, Paul Ortega. Zoom interview conducted by Carleigh Ocon in Eugene, Oregon. October 4, 2022.
[1] Ocon, Paul Ortega. Zoom interview conducted by Carleigh Ocon in Eugene, Oregon. October 4, 2022; story extrapolated from the second hand account of events in the 50s.
[2] Gutiérrez, Henry J. “Racial Politics in Los Angeles: Black and Mexican American Challenges to Unequal Education in the 1960s.” Southern California Quarterly 78, no. 1 (1996): 52; research reflected that Mexican Americans often did not thrive as well in schools due to the negative view of Mexican culture that America had during the 60s.
[3] Ocon, Paul Ortega. Zoom interview conducted by Carleigh Ocon in Eugene, Oregon. October 4, 2022; story extrapolated from first-hand account in the interview.
[4] Ocon, Paul Ortega. Zoom interview conducted by Carleigh Ocon in Eugene, Oregon. October 4, 2022; firsthand account and direct quote from personal experiences in West Covina.
[5] Sanchez, George J. “Face the Nation: Race, Immigration, and the Rise of Nativism in Late Twentieth Century America.” The International Migration Review 31, no. 4 (1997): 1015-6; “race matters” philosophy that immigrants lean toward nativism due to the psychology of race and borders between people of different racial identities.
The Musical Influences of the Ocon Clan