THREADS OF HISTORY: MULTIMEDIA EXHIBITS TRACE THE EXPERIENCES OF THE LATINO COMMUNITY IN SONOMA COUNTY

George Ortiz is proud to say he was born in East Los Angeles in the good

old U.S.A., and he's delighted that he settled in Sonoma County 40 years ago.

Still, he's aware that while he has a Santa Rosa address, he lives in two

worlds.

''I like to characterize myself as an American of Mexican descent, even

though people call me a Mexican,'' said Ortiz, 74, a former social worker and

longtime community organizer. ''We have two communities here. There's still a

little bit of distance between us. We don't understand each other sometimes.

It's a two-way street.''

That's why Ortiz joined other local Latinos in contributing memories, and

lending his recorded voice, to the Sonoma County Museum's new exhibit, ''La

Frontera Del Norte'' (''The Frontier of the North,'') which opened Friday

night in Santa Rosa.

Continuing through Jan. 11, the exhibit traces the experience and history

of Sonoma County's Latino community with oral histories, audio and video

displays, photographs, artwork and artifacts ranging from saddles and spurs to

neighborhood organizers' banners.

''The goal is to draw a thread all the way from the earliest Latino

population that arrived in Sonoma County and connect it with the contemporary

population,'' said Eric Stanley, exhibitions and collections curator at the

museum.

Starting with the rancheros, vaqueros and missionaries of the early 1800s,

the exhibit goes on to examine the influx of migrant workers in the 1940s and

the labor organizing effort of the 1960s, ending with a look at contemporary

Latino life in Sonoma County.

To Stanley, who started work on this project 18 months ago, it's just as

important to look beyond the romanticized past as it is to look deeper than

current news stories devoted mostly to illegal immigration and gang conflicts.

''The usual historical interpretation of the early Californios, the Latinos

who were here, is that they essentially lost their land, frittered everything

away and disappeared, which is not the whole, true story,'' Stanley explained.

''The important point is that there are still elements of the original

Latinos here,'' he continued. ''Those people did persist. The early settlers

are still part of the community, through their descendants, even though they

became essentially invisible.''

The 2006 U.S. census estimates Sonoma County's total population at almost

467,000. Out of that total, 22 percent (nearly 103,000) are of Latino descent.

''It's a diverse community within the community,'' Stanley said. ''These

people work for Agilent or Kaiser, and some are teachers and professors.''

And the proportion of that community that is descended from

Spanish-speaking cultures other than Mexico has increased.

''It's a large, visible and sometimes -- to my chagrin -- invisible

community,'' Ortiz said. ''We do it to ourselves a lot. We distance ourselves

from the larger community. We've got to reach out and move towards each other,

and try to understand each other better.''

''La Frontera'' is just one part of the museum's ambitious and historic

effort to build a stronger cultural bridge between the English-speaking and

Spanish-speaking communities here.

''To put this in a bigger context, this is part of a two-year project,''

said Diane Evans, the museum's executive director since May. ''The exhibit is

the kick-off of that effort in a public way, and next year there will be a

couple of more exhibits. We're probably going to produce a book and some CDs

and DVDs.''

Last December, the museum was awarded a $40,000 grant from the San

Francisco-based James Irvine Foundation for an oral history project titled,

''Sonoma Stories: Latino Heritage.''

The program works in tandem with a project called ''Tengo La Voz (I Have

the Voice,)'' started in 2006 by the museum in collaboration with the Sonoma

County Library and KRCB-TV, the public TV station in Rohnert Park.

Backed by a $250,000 grant from the Institute for Museum and Library

Services in Washington, D.C., ''Tengo La Voz'' offers workshops in creative

writing, multimedia and visual arts to Latino students helping collect

material for ''Sonoma Stories: Latino Heritage.'' That grant allocates $45,000

for the museum's exhibits and workshops.

In conjunction with ''La Frontera del Norte,'' the museum also is showing

paintings, photographs and video and audio displays stemming from the ''Tengo

La Voz'' project, in a new temporary exhibit space at Seventh Street and

Mendocino Avenue.

Julio Cesar Morales of San Francisco, lead artist for ''Tengo La Voz,''

also worked with students to create an installation in the museum's

Contemporary Project Space.

''All together, this really is a comprehensive project, and our goal is to

broaden the audience of this museum in general,'' Evans said. ''With this

particular group of exhibits, we have big, free family day fiestas and a

series of lectures for the whole community. We want to involve people, and

welcome all of Santa Rosa and all of Sonoma County.''

Ortiz believes it's just as important for Latinos to see these exhibits and

attend these programs as it is for the larger community.

''We were here a long time ago. We have a very rich history,'' he said.

''Exhibits that show our heritage and our roots, where we come from and where

we are, enhance better understanding for everyone. We all need to

understand.''

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at 521-5243 or

dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com.