Walking Tour Guide for Celebrating the Dignity of Labor

Walking Tour Guide for Celebrating the Dignity of Labor
City of Watsonville Downtown Revitalization
June 2017
A Community Invested Public Art Project
Lead Artist Kathleen Crocetti
Artist Sponsor Rinaldi Tile

A Community Invested Public Art Project is one in which the community has a say in what kind of art happens in their public spaces. For Celebrating the Dignity of Labor, the artist held community meetings for input into the content and designs of the work. The community also helped fabricate the mosaics over a period of five weeks at the farmers market as well as in the artist's studio.

Not all of the diverse cultures that have migrated to Watsonville are represented. For instance, the Italians represent a European wave of immigration that includes Basque, English, German, Greek, Scott, Swede and Swiss communities. The third wave of Mexicans, which began in 1942, has not stopped and now includes people from all regions of Central and South America. No one community past 1942 is represented, and there have been many!

Deciding which group was assigned which agricultural product was a tricky business. As an example, the Chinese cultivated both wild mustard and wild strawberries, but every group who has come since then has had some hand in the development of our strawberry industry. Seeing as the latest arrivals always do the most difficult labor, strawberries were assigned to the latest group of immigrants to arrive. Other industries, such as fishing, were shared by many groups.

Ultimately assigning labor went to the cultural group who had a representative at the community meetings and who felt strongly that one product was more indicative of their culture than another.

1-Native People	2-Spanish Missionaries	3-Chinese	4-Japanese
5-Filipinos	6-Portuguese	7-Second wave of Mexicans	8-Danish
9-Title Medallion	10-Croatians	11-New City Logo	12-African Americans
13-Irish	14-Italians	15-First Wave of Mexicans	16-3rd Wave of Mexicans & South Americans